Geoff's little sister

by Evelyn R. Garratt

Geoffrey here interfered.

"Come Forbes, that isn't fair," he said, "he's a little chap, and besides we have no right not to believe him. Let him go, there's a good fellow."

But it was not till Forbes had administered a certain amount of corporal punishment on the offender that he let him go, and saw him make his way upstairs sobbing.

Jack did not however, for a wonder, go straight to Nurse, but hid himself on the floor in a dark corner of the night nursery.

There huddled poor little Jack, with a great burden on his conscience. He had told a lie—a direct lie—and he had told it twice, and yet he felt he could never confess that he was the guilty one. They would never forgive him for spoiling Dodie's doll, and they would always look down upon him for telling a lie about it. Jack sat and cried all by himself in the dark, and did not move from his corner till nurse herself came up an hour afterwards with Dodie in her little nightdress in her arms. It was only on putting the candle on the chest of drawers that she discovered Jack.

"Why my beauty!" she cried, laying Dodie down and turning towards Jack, "What's the matter, eh? Has anyone been unkind to you?"

And taking him on her knee, she kissed him and smoothed his hair, and rocked him in her kind old arms, in great distress at finding him crying in the dark.

"He's thinking about his poor dear Mamma, I do believe, bless him," she thought to herself, as Jack still sobbed, giving no explanation of his tears; then aloud she said, "if you're a good boy, you shall have a bit of cake for supper. Leave off crying, there's a darling, while I tuck Dodie up, and then I'll tell you a story by the nursery fire."

So Jack went down into the nursery, with the lie still on his conscience, and looking very shamefaced. It was true he was able to enjoy the large slice of currant cake which an hour or two afterwards Nurse gave him, for Jack could enjoy cake under almost any circumstances, but he did not enjoy meeting Forbes' eyes fixed upon him, after taking an unusually large mouthful.

Forbes and Geoff were eating the usual supper of bread and butter by the table, and neither of them could quite make out what Jack had done to deserve an extra treat in the way of cake, and to be allowed to eat it by the fire, notwithstanding the crumbs which fell on the carpet, and against which Nurse as a rule waged war.