“They’re not. Miss Anon. didn’t write them. My Maggie did; and you know it, and you took them out of her bag.”
Mr. Temple laughed with the others at the first part of the speech, but looked grave again at its ending.
“Hallo!” he said, rousing himself from the lazy attitude he had kept until now, “do you know what you are saying, little lady? That would be stealing.”
Bessie stood looking at him for a moment in silence.
“I picked them up off the deck of the steamboat,” said the young gentleman, a shade of vexation crossing his face as he noted the expression of the child’s.
With grave reproach in her great, serious eyes, she made answer,—
“I don’t see why it’s not just the same.”
“The same as what, as stealing?”
“You knew they were not yours, sir,” answered the child. “I don’t suppose it was just stealing, but I think it was”—
“Well,” said Mr. Temple, seeing she hesitated.