David nodded his head. He knew it very well; and not only that, he knew what Nancy was going to choose, for she had confided to him as a great secret that her heart was set on a kitchen-range for the doll’s house.
“When she chooses, would you like me to say: ‘No, Nancy. Because you were careless and forgot David’s pig I shall give you nothing this year?’”
Miss Unity waited eagerly for the answer. How she hoped it would be “No.” She had not been so anxious for anything for a long time.
But David raised his head, gazed at her calmly, and said quite distinctly:
“Yes.”
Miss Unity sighed as she got up from her lowly seat.
“Very well, David,” she said, “it shall be so; but I am sorry you will not forgive your sister.”
She went sadly back to the house, thinking to herself:
“Of course I could not persuade where others have failed. It was foolish to try. I have no influence with children. I ought to have remembered that.”
But she was mistaken. That night when she was dressing for dinner there was a little knock at her door, very low down as though from somebody of short stature. She opened it, and there was David.