Almost she convinced him, so great was the belief in her shining eyes, so utterly unshaken her trust. She told him everything, and he listened patiently and attentively even to the smallest detail, asking a question here and there, but for the most part; letting her tell her story in her own way.
[84]
]When she told of the kiss by the staircase window, she broke down a little; but he slipped his arm round her waist, and she shed her tears on his coat sleeve,—how Bunty would have stared! She showed the dirty scrap of paper, and he read it thoughtfully.
“If only he had never told a lie before,” he said, “then perhaps——”
Oh, if only she could have flung back her head and said, “He has never told a lie in his life, sir; never—never!”
Shame at not being able to do so made the dear, curly head droop a little, and two more tears forced their way from under her eyelids and fell sadly down her cheek.
“I’m sure he never will again!” she said, with sorrowful hopefulness. “But, oh, sir, he couldn’t be a thief! Oh, how could he?”
“Well, I don’t see how he could be altogether bad with such a little sister,” he said slowly. “What sort of a boy is he at home? Is he good to you?”
“Oh yes,” said Poppet,—“oh yes, indeed!”
And it is a fact that not a single act that disproved this came to the little girl’s mind. She remembered nothing but the times he had been good to her.
“Twice I was sent to bed without tea, and he bwought me all his pudding in some newspaper,” [85] ]she said eagerly; “and when I had difeeria, and they wouldn’t let him in, he used to climb up the creeper when no one was in the room and smile at me through the window. An’ another time I was ill he sat on the mat outside the door all night; Meg found him in the morning asleep with his head on the oilcloth. An’ when it was my birthday—I was nine—and he had no money, so he sold his guinea-pigs to one of the fellows—and he liked them better than anything he’d got—and he went and bought me a doll’s pwambulator, ’cause Peter smashed mine with filling it with stones. Oh, and lots and lots and lots of things! He was vewy good to me—oh, indeed!”