Elizabeth and Anne indulged in a good laugh at Helen, as much as at Ambrose, and presently Elizabeth said, 'Well, but, Anne, where is your crime?'
'Oh! I thought you had remembered, and would spare me,' said Anne.
'But we have not,' said Elizabeth; 'so now for it.'
'Then if I am to tell,' said Anne, 'do not you recollect that I began to tell Rupert the story in the middle of dinner, when all the servants were there?'
'O Anne, I never fancied you such a goose!' said Elizabeth.
'My delinquencies made very little impression on you, then,' said Anne; 'I went on very fluently with the story till just as I had pronounced the words, "two-legged blackbirds," I saw Uncle Woodbourne's eye upon me, as he sat just opposite, with all its cold heavy sternness of expression, and at the same moment I heard a strange suppressed snort behind my chair.'
'Poor creature!' said Elizabeth; 'but you certainly deserved it.'
'I was ready to sink under the table,' said Anne; 'I did not dare to look up to Papa or Mamma, and I have been very much obliged to Mamma ever since for never alluding to that terrible dinner.'
'It is a regular proof that Fun is one of the most runaway horses in existence,' said Elizabeth; 'very charming when well curbed, but if you give him the rein—'
'Yes, I have been learning that by sad experience all my life,' said Anne, with a sigh.