"But that was most entirely your fault, Jane," said Maggie: "you ran in very suddenly, and screamed to mamma that Frankie was most killed; and papa said it gave her a shock, and people ought to tell her things quietly and gently, so as not to frighten her."
"I don't know what she'll say when I tell her," said Jane, "and your papa away, and all."
"You shan't tell her," said Belle. "I'll tell her myself."
"Yes," said Bessie. "It's best for Belle to tell mamma herself, Janey; and I will help her. I have thought how we can tell her in a manner that is not at all shocking, and she would rather we would tell her of ourselves when we have been naughty."
When they reached home, Jane carried Belle to the head of the stairs, where she put her down; and the three little girls arranged their plan for telling mamma.
Belle took off her hat, and putting the little gaiter, which she still held in her hand, in the hollow of the crown, held the hat against her bosom with both arms, so that the shoe was quite hidden. She, as well as the other two, wanted Mrs. Bradford to question them before she saw the shoe or the foot. It was not that they wished to keep anything back from her, but they feared to tell her too suddenly.
They all wished it was over, especially Belle; and the young faces were by no means as bright as they usually were, when they ran into mamma's room on their daily return from school. Belle kept behind the others until she came close to Mrs. Bradford, when, without putting up her face for the kiss which generally welcomed her, she sat down on a stool at the lady's side, still keeping her bandaged foot carefully out of sight.
Mrs. Bradford did not speak to her, or tell her to come and kiss her, as Belle half hoped, half feared she would do. She kept on with her work with a very grave face, and that work was a pretty little sacque, like some owned by Maggie and Bessie, which she was embroidering for Belle. The child knew it was for her; and she had been disobeying that dear, kind friend! She seemed to feel how naughty and ungrateful she had been, even more than she had done before.
"She looks as sorry as if she knew," said Belle to herself; "but then she can't know yet. No one saw me do it but God, and He never tells about people; but I guess He's pretty sorry too, 'cause I was so naughty. Maybe He won't be so sorry with me if I tell Aunt Margaret pretty quick. I'll just do it, if Bessie don't make haste."
Bessie was just preparing to tell her story; but, in order not to shock her mamma, she came to it in rather a roundabout way, not at all like her usual fashion of telling things. Sitting down upon the rug at Belle's side, she said, in a grave tone,—