Flo looked up at her piteously.
"I've done a very wrong thing," said she.
"Yes, dear. Tell me all about it."
"Hetty brought me a present of two bunches of cherries. She did not know that I ought not to eat them; she put them away in Lina's basket. While she was reading I kept wishing for them, and when she went to the kitchen I took the basket off the table. They looked so nice I ate them. They were not very nice; they were sour, and not cool—but I ate them. They gave me a very bad pain; and I was glad of that. Oh, I've been just like Eve. Poor Eve, I am more sorry for her now! But Hetty did not do wrong, mamma; it was all me."
"I did think my little girl could be trusted," said Mrs. Eyre.
"So did I, mamma," was the unexpected reply, which very nearly surprised Mrs. Eyre into a laugh. "But I did it. Will you never trust me again, mamma?"
"Soon, I hope; but you will have to earn it, Flo. Do not cry, my dear, I know you are sorry, and I am glad you told me yourself. You are not strong, like Lina, so I shall not punish you, and I hope you will try to be sorry quietly, for if you cry and fret you will make yourself ill. And try, dear, to see where you began to do wrong. Eating the cherries was not the beginning, was it now?"
"No; I was cross all day, and I murmured, mamma, nearly all day, and never tried to stop; and then I kept wishing, wishing for the cherries."
"And if you had tried to leave off being cross and fretful it would not have been so hard, because, you know, you often have done that. God would have helped you."
"Will He forgive me, mamma?"