Peter reflected.
"I think I should have told people it was my fault, and then I should have felt obliged to run away after you to find you. That would have been good fun! I should have gone on the donkey, and you bet I should have caught you up!" His eyes gleamed at the idea.
"I'm very glad I didn't go on. It's horrid if you feel you're quite alone in the world. I felt when I was in that empty house, as if I had lost my friends and my home—and the most awful thing of all—that I had lost God, and didn't belong to Him any more."
It was Peter's turn to look grave.
"I'm glad I'm not you, without a mother. Mother is ripping. She wasn't a bit angry when I told her, only very sorry—and—well—loving. I was rather a cad, and, of course it was a lie I told. I'm never going to tell another as long as I live. If I die for it, I won't!"
Peter clenched his fists determinedly.
His sin, and the burden of it, and then the confession, had made him a different boy. Harebell felt he was a much nicer Peter afterwards, and other people felt so too.
Lessons began again, and life went on with cheerful regularity, varied by picnics on half-holidays, and later on by blackberrying and nutting expeditions. Harebell grew into a strong rosy girl. Her aunt was fast losing her cold indifferent manner towards her, and Harebell now chatted to her as freely and unconstrainedly as to any one else. Then the winter came: but Harebell enjoyed the cold, and welcomed the frost and snow with delight and interest.
Christmas was a most enjoyable time, and she and the Rectory children were inseparable during the holidays.
When the New Year came, there was a good deal of sickness in the village, and many of the old people died. Amongst them was Mrs. Crake and Mrs. Triggs. Tom came to his mother's funeral, and the village hardly knew him. He had gone steadily on in the right way, and was now a respectable sober hardworking man.