"Oh, Cousin Debby, I have been so wicked," sobbed Lucy. "You will never love me again, when I tell you what I have done."
"I shall not cease to love you, though you have been ever so naughty, if I see you are sorry for what you have done," said Cousin Deborah, gravely but kindly. "Compose yourself, my child, and tell me all about the matter."
In low tones, and often interrupted with sobs, Lucy confessed the whole, hiding nothing, and making no attempt to excuse herself.
Cousin Deborah listened in silence.
As Lucy finished her tale, she laid her head again upon her cousin's knee. She expected to feel herself lifted roughly to her feet, and shaken out of breath; but she seemed determined to keep hold of her refuge as long as possible.
But in a minute, a gentle hand stroked down her hair, and a gentle voice said,—
"My poor, little, weak-spirited girl! Could you not trust Cousin Deborah?"
Lucy's tears flowed fast once more, but they were very different tears.
"See how much harm has come from your cowardice," continued Cousin Deborah. "If you had told me directly you lost the thimble, I should have been displeased, indeed, at your disobedience, but there would have been the end. You would have been spared all this grief, and anxiety, and all the terrors you suffered from the gipsy-woman. You would not have lost your dear mother's knife, and, above all, Lucy, you would not have been tempted to tell so many lies."
"I kept thinking all the time that I would not tell any more," said Lucy; "but, somehow, they kept coming all the more."