Hester, however, was now really unhappy, and also truly sorry for poor Annie. Could she have got off without disgrace or punishment, she would have been truly glad to see Annie exonerated. She was quite certain that Susan Drummond was at the bottom of all the mischief which had been done lately at Lavender House. She could not make out how stupid Susan was clever enough to caricature and to imitate peoples’ hands. Still she was convinced that she was the guilty person, and she wondered and wondered if she could induce Susan to come forward and confess the truth, and so save Annie without bringing her, Hester, into any trouble.
She resolved to speak to Susan, and without confessing that she had been in the school-room on the night the essay was changed, to let her know plainly that she suspected her.
She became much calmer when she determined to carry out this resolve, and toward morning she fell asleep.
She was awakened at a very early hour by little Nan clambering over the side of her crib, and cuddling down cosily in a way she loved by Hester’s side.
“Me so ’nug, ’nug,” said little Nan. “Oh, Hetty, Hetty, there’s a wy on the teiling!”
Hester had then to rouse herself, and enter into an animated conversation on the subject of flies generally, and in especial she had to talk of that particular fly which would perambulate on the ceiling over Nan’s head.
“Me like wies,” said Nan, “and me like ’oo, Hetty, and me love—me love Annie.”
Hester kissed her little sister passionately; but this last observation, accompanied by the expression of almost angelic devotion which filled little Nan’s brown eyes, as she repeated that she liked flies and Hetty, but that she loved Annie, had the effect of again hardening her heart.
Hester’s hour of trial, however, was at hand, and before that day was over she was to experience that awful emptiness and desolation which those know whom God is punishing.
Lessons went on as usual at Lavender House that morning, and, to the surprise of several, Annie was seen in her old place in class. She worked with a steadiness quite new to her; no longer interlarding her hours of study with those indescribable glances of fun and mischief, first at one school-companion and then at another, which used to worry her teachers so much.