“In a minute; I must carry my work up first. I’m going to jump off—it’s real fun. You see if I don’t go as far as that dandelion.”
So Gypsy sprang from the tree, carrying a shower of blossoms with her.
“Oh, look out for the statue!” cried Sarah.
The warning came too late. Gypsy fell short of her mark, hit the water-nymph heavily, and it fell with a crash into the water, where the paved bottom was hard as rock.
“Just see what you’ve done!” said Sarah, who had not a capacity for making comforting remarks. “What do you suppose your father will say?”
Gypsy stood aghast. The water gurgled over the fallen statue, whose pretty, upraised hands were snapped at the wrist, and the wondering face crushed in. There was a moment’s silence.
“Don’t you tell!” said Sarah at length; “nobody saw it fall, and they’ll never think you did it. You just seem surprised, and keep still about it.”
Gypsy flushed to her forehead.
“Why, Sarah Rowe! how can you say such a thing? I wouldn’t tell a lie for anything in this world!”
“It wouldn’t be a lie!” said Sarah, looking ashamed and provoked. “You needn’t say you didn’t do it.”