But poor Mabel, whatever she might wish or be willing to do, could find no words beyond "I—I—you—I"—and here she hung her head, and with gathering tears brought forward the hand which held the dead duckling, which until now she had kept hidden.
"Shall I tell Mr. Clark?" asked her father.
Mabel nodded assent.
"It seems she picked up this duckling and carried it down to the Rocks this afternoon," said Mr. Walton, "intending to give it a swim in some pool, and then bring it back; but she has handled it too roughly, I suppose; for when she reached there it was dying. She is very sorry now, and feels that she did wrong to take it without permission; but I will make it all right with you, Mr. Clark, and Mabel will promise not to meddle again with what is not her own."
"Whew!" said Mr. Clark, staring at the duckling as if he had not heard the latter part of Mr. Walton's speech; "there's two of 'em. Won't my wife be in a takin' though? I found another on 'em lyin' sick under the currant bushes this arternoon, an' it's dead or dyin' by this time. I see it warn't no use coddlin' it up; 'twas too fur gone, so I let it be."
"I found this one under the currant bushes," said Mabel, regaining her voice. "It was just lying there, so that was the way I came to take it."
"Did you, though?" said Mr. Clark; "well, sure enough, it's the very same fellow I left there. Don't you fret then, child; you've only put it out of its misery a little sooner, for it wouldn't ha' come round no way. 'Tain't no odds about it, Mr. Walton; jes' let it go, and I'll fix it with my old woman so she won't blame the little girl."
Very much relieved, and thankful that she had made up her mind to confess, Mabel ran away to her mother, receiving permission from Mr. Clark to keep the duckling for the proposed funeral honors. The roar of laughter with which he heard her intentions did not sound very pleasant in her ears, but she was too grateful to escape a scolding to find fault with the good-natured man.
Mabel had imagined that Belle and Lily would be very much shocked when they came home and heard of the fate of the duckling; but they were not half as much so as she feared; for she did not fail to tell them that Mr. Clark had said the little bird could not possibly have lived and thriven; and besides, its burial afforded the prospect of a pleasant entertainment for the next day.
"And Maggie and Bessie are coming over to spend the day to-morrow," said Belle. "Papa had a letter from Mrs. Bradford saying so. We'll wait till they come, shan't we?"