“What have these brats been doing?—San Blas! What a mess!” cried Facunda, who came in at the master’s heels.
Leon cast a despairing glance at the torn prints, the scribbled atlas, the microscope on the floor; that one glance was enough to reveal the extent of the disaster.
“You little wretches, what have you done?” he exclaimed, going up to the table. “And you, Facunda, what were you thinking of to leave them alone here? What were you about? Listening to gossip no doubt—You are a worse baby than they are!”
He stamped his feet angrily. Then he heard a piteous cry from Tachana—a cry from her baby heart.
“Was it you, Monina?” said Leon, looking at the child with grave displeasure. Monina shook her head in denial till it seemed as though she would shake it off; at the same time her conscience no doubt pricked her, for she looked at her hands like a second Lady Macbeth.
“But it was you ... look at your hands. You little wretch!”
Monina looked up in his face, imploring mercy; two large tears rolled down her cheeks, and her face was puckered up for a whimper when Tachana’s lamentations suddenly filled the house; she was a perfect Magdalen; there was nothing for it but to believe in the sincerity of such noisy repentance.
“There, there,” said Leon, kissing the two little sinners and taking Monina in his arms, “do not cry any more. What a pretty pair of hands! What would Mamma say? Come and wash them—you dirty little creature!”
“The nurse let them come up alone, that she might stay down-stairs and gossip and chatter,” said Facunda, following with the water jug, “I cannot be everywhere at once; it is all her fault.”
Monina’s hands were washed; then Leon, seating himself, took a young lady on each knee.