"Nobody here injured him," said Mabel. "He always cries all the time, anyhow."
"We did put them out and for a very good reason," said Jean, speaking as respectfully as she could, "but we certainly didn't hurt either of them. I'm sorry if the baby isn't well, but I know it isn't our fault."
"Laura walked down the steps," said Bettie, "and the baby turned over and slid down on his stomach the way he always does."
"I should think that a minister's daughter," said Mrs. Milligan, with a withering glance at poor shrinking Bettie, "would scorn to tell such lies."
Bettie, who had never before been accused of untruthfulness, looked the picture of conscious guilt; a tide of crimson flooded her cheeks and she fingered the buttons on her blouse nervously. She was too dumbfounded to speak a word in her own defense. Mabel, however, was only too ready.
"Bettie never told a lie in her life," cried the indignant little girl. "It was your own Laura that told stories if anybody did—and I guess somebody did, all right. Laura never tells the truth; she doesn't know how to."
"I have implicit confidence in Laura," returned Mrs. Milligan, frowning at Mabel. "I believe every word she says."
"Well," retorted dauntless Mabel, "that's more than the rest of us do. We kept count one day and she told seventy-two fibs that we know of."
"Oh, Mabel, do hush," pleaded scandalized Bettie.
"Hush nothing," said Mabel, not to be deterred. "I'm only telling the truth. Laura took our handkerchiefs and then fibbed about it, and we've missed a dozen things since that she probably carried off and—"