Gracie muttered something which might mean either yes or no.
"Augh!" said Lily, "what do you talk to that proudy about it for? She don't care a bit. I b'lieve she's just glad and wouldn't help Nellie if she could."
Gracie made no answer: she was too miserable for words or to think of answering Lily's taunts, and she would have given up all thought of having any thing to do with the fair to have had Nellie's mat safely in her possession once more. Oh, if she had never yielded to temptation or to Hattie's persuasions!
"How you do act!" whispered Hattie to Gracie. "If you don't take care they will suspect something."
"I can't help it," returned Gracie in the same tone: "it is such an awful story that we have told."
"It is not a story," said Hattie; "we've neither of us said one word about the mat."
This was a new view of the matter; but it brought no comfort to Gracie's conscience She knew that the acted deceit was as bad as the spoken one, perhaps in this case even worse.
She felt as if she could not bear this any longer, as if she must tell, must confess what she had done; and yet—how? How could she lower herself so in the eyes of her schoolmates? she who had always held herself so high, been so scornful over the least meanness, equivocation, or approach to falsehood!
A more wretched little girl than Gracie was that morning it would have been hard to find; but her teacher and schoolmates thought her want of spirit arose from the recollection of her late naughtiness and the feeling of shame, and took as little notice of it as possible.