"He—asked me!" I said.
"Come here, Kitty," said she, and I came close. Mary took my hand in a grave sort of way, not stern now.
"But if you lent him the watch and chain, you did not mean him to sell them?"
I was startled again into saying "O no!"
"No; so I supposed. He talked to you about loans, and raising money, and passing difficulties—did he not?"
It was so exactly what he had done, that I hung my head.
"Poor silly child!" Mary said.
I couldn't bear to have them both looking at me, and I dropped down on the floor, hiding my face in Mary's dress. Somehow her touch was a comfort, even while it made me more ashamed.
"Then he sold the watch," mother said, in a hard voice.
"Yes," Mary told us. He had sold the watch and chain—sold them, after all his promises to me! To be sure, he had spoken to the jeweller of "pressing difficulties," and of hoping to buy them back in the course of a few weeks; but anybody might know what that was worth.