“You don’t hate him more than I do,” said Flower. “My news is about him. Still, you must come, for it also means Firefly and your father. They’ll both get into awful trouble—I know they will—if we don’t save them.”
“What?” said Polly; “what? Take baby, please, Nurse. Now, what is it, Flower?” pulling her outside the nursery door. “What has that horrid Scorpion to do with Fly and father?”
“Only this: Fly has confessed that she knows what has become of him, but she’s a dear little brick and won’t tell. She says she’s a Maybright, and they don’t tell lies. Three cheers for the Maybrights, if they are all like Fly, say I! Well, the little love won’t tell, and Mrs. Cameron is fit to dance, and what does she do but gets leave from Dr. Strong to see your father, and she’s going to drag Fly before him at three o’clock to-day, and make a fine story of what happened. She holds it over Fly that your father will be made very ill again. Very likely he will, if we don’t prevent it.”
“It’s horrible!” said Polly; “but how can we prevent it, Flower?”
“Oh, easily enough. You must guard your father’s room. Let no one in under any pretense whatever until I have found David.”
“What do you mean by finding David? What can David have to say to it?”
“Oh! has he not? Poor Fly! David has got her into his toils. David is at the bottom of all this, I am convinced. I guessed it the moment I saw him go up so boldly to Mrs. Cameron and pretend to be sorry about the dog. He sorry about Scorpion! He hates him more than any of us.”
“But then—I don’t understand; if that is so, David told a deliberate lie, Flower.”
Flower colored.
“We have not been brought up like the Maybrights,” she said. “Oh, yes, we could tell a lie; we were not brought up to be particular about good things, or to avoid bad things. We were brought up—well, just anyhow.”