"She had them dolls yisterday," Norah cried, accusingly, her finger pointed straight at the kitchen door. "I saw them in her box. Sure, I thought that the mistress gave them to her, and it's not for the likes of me to say what the mistress shall give or not give. Then this morning when there was questions asked, she crept upstairs and put them in the doll-house. The sarpent! Is my child to lie in the dark crying her heart out, and that sarpent set at my kitchen-table drinking her tay, and telling me wicked tales of my child?"
Nobody answered her. They stared at her in bewilderment. Norah had never acted like that before.
"If there was questions to be asked, why wasn't I asked?" she went on, angrily. "If the mistress or the master had said to me, 'Norah, where's them little dolls?' I would have told them the truth. I would have said, 'Lily-Ann stole them yisterday, ma'am, and to-day she put them in the doll-house, sur.' But, no, they don't ask honest old Norah. They listen to that sarpent backbiting my child. The little innocent creatur! The dear little old-fashioned thing that niver took nought from nobody!"
I put my arms around Norah's neck, and hugged her until I nearly strangled her.
"Give Rhoda to me, Norah," my mother said, jealously.
"There's only one thing more to be said, ma'am," Norah continued, obstinately standing her ground, still with my arms about her neck. "Either old Norah goes or that sarpent goes. I'll have no sarpents in my kitchen."
They were all looking at Lily-Ann now. There was a ring of truth about Norah's story which had convinced them at last.
"Have you anything to say, Lily-Ann?" my father asked, sternly.
She had nothing to say. As she drooped a little closer to the door and wiped her eyes in a miserable fashion, I felt that I could forgive her all the harm which she had done me. Poor Lily-Ann, who my mother said had never been a child!
"Oh, please, Norah, let Lily-Ann stay!" I cried, piteously. "I'll be so good if you'll let Lily-Ann stay!"