“You don’t know what it is to see papa angry,” said Richard.
“Dear me, Richard!” cried Ethel, who thought she knew pretty well what his sharp words were. “I’m sure papa never was angry with me, without making me love him more, and, at least, want to be better.”
“You are a girl,” said Richard.
“You are higher spirited, and shake off things faster,” said Margaret.
“Why, what do you think he would do to Tom?”
“I think he would be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid and meek, would be dreadfully frightened,” said Richard.
“That’s just what he ought to be, frightened out of these tricks.”
“I am afraid it would frighten him into them still more,” said Richard, “and perhaps give him such a dread of my father as would prevent him from ever being open with him.”
“Besides, it would make papa so very unhappy,” added Margaret. “Of course, if poor dear Tom had been found out in any positive deceit, we ought to mention it at once, and let him be punished; but while it is all vague suspicion, and of what papa has such a horror of, it would only grieve him, and make him constantly anxious, without, perhaps, doing Tom any good.”
“I think all that is expediency,” said Ethel, in her bluff, abrupt way.