“She shan’t eat this, then!” declared Dorcas, promptly sitting down and dividing with great care all this delectable treat.
“Why, little ones, what are you doing? Why aren’t you back yonder with the rest? I don’t see Saint Augustine there, either. Do you know where he is?”
As this simple question interrupted them the conscience-stricken children began to cry. One glance into their mother’s troubled face had aroused all their love for her and a sense of their own selfishness.
“Why, babies dear, what’s the matter? Have you hurt yourselves?”
“Yes, mamma, we have. We’ve hurted the very insides of us, in the place where mutton-taller can’t reach an’ you can’t kiss it well again. Your dinner was sent to you and—and—we’ve et it up!”
Dorcas delivered herself of this statement in a defiant attitude, her arms folded behind her, but her little breast heaving. And she could scarcely believe her own ears when the only reprimand she received was:
“Say ‘eaten,’ darling, not ‘et.’ I do wonder where my boy is! In some mischief, I fear, the precious little scamp!”
But she was still wondering when that day’s sun went down.