But Percy could not be persuaded to do this; he lacked the moral courage to follow his sister's advice and to confess all to his uncle before he should be obliged to do so, hoping that after all she might be mistaken and that he should still escape that humiliation. Since Colonel Rush had not spoken at once upon the subject, Percy believed that he would not do so at all, either because he had no knowledge of these money transactions or because he thought the matter of no importance.
"Why should Uncle Horace worry himself about Hannah's money?" he said to his sister. "She is nothing to him, and what she chooses to do with it is no business of his. She is not his servant."
"No," said the sensible and more far-sighted Lena; "but she is in his house. And you are his nephew and under his care, and he must think it strange that a servant would send you so much money and in such a secret way, and he must know that something is wrong; he must suspect that you are in some very bad scrape."
But Percy was still immovable. Easily swayed as he was in general, he was not to be influenced in the only right direction now, and all Lena's arguments were thrown away.
"But I say, Lena," he said, with a sudden change of subject and with his usual, easy-going facility for putting aside for the time being anything which troubled him, "I say, isn't it queer that the girl you are all trying to win this prize for should be the sister of Seabrooke? How things do come around, to be sure. I can tell you he's as uppish as the Grand Panjandrum himself about it, too; says his sister is not an object of charity, and her father and brother are able to look after her."
"Oh, did you tell him? How could you, Percy?" exclaimed Lena. "And now he'll tell her, and we meant it to be a surprise to her if any one gained it for her. What will the girls say, Maggie and Bessie, and the others who are trying for her!"
"I let it out without intending to," said Percy. "I was so taken by surprise myself when Seabrooke told me what he intended to do with that money, that I just let it out without thinking. But afterwards I told him it was a secret, and he said he wouldn't say anything about it. But he was awfully high and mighty, I can tell you. You won't make the thing go down with him. But who is likely to win it,—you won't, of course, whatever your chances may have been in the beginning—any one of your chums? Maggie Bradford or Bessie, or those?"
"I don't know," answered Lena. "Maggie would, of course, if it were for the best composition written by the class; but it is not for that, you know, but for the greatest general improvement in composition. But so many of the girls are interested about Gladys Seabrooke that I think almost any of our class would give it to her. But it somehow seems as if Maggie or Bessie ought to have the pleasure because we are the ones who found her out. The girls are all going to Miss Ashton's on Saturday morning, when they will be told; and if any one gains the prize who will give it to Gladys Seabrooke, it will be sent to her as an Easter present."