"Where did you find these?" asked my aunt.
"Sticking in the dirt in Missy Lovely garden," answered the negro. "I tell you, Missy Holland, dat gal a deep one."
"Hush, Sambo, you forget yourself!" said my aunt, smiling. "Go down and ask the cook for one of the new baked saffron cakes, and bring it up. As for you, Betty, I shall watch you, and woe be to you if you have spoken falsely, or if I hear you use another impertinent word. Go, now, take your besom and sweep every bit of dust from the summer-house and the paved walks. Finish the work before you leave it, and let me see it done nicely, or I will lay one of the besom twigs about your shoulders."
I don't think my aunt was one bit sorry to have a legitimate cause for falling upon Betty. When we were alone together, she sat down in a great chair, and drawing me to her, spite of my resistance, she prayed me most kindly and gently to tell her the whole truth.
"What is the use, aunt?" I asked, not so much sullenly as hopelessly. "I have told the truth already, and nobody will believe me. You credit Betty, though you know she tells lies, and I have never told a lie since I came into the house. And even if you do, my uncle will not. I thought he was the best man in the world, and now I never can think him good any more!"
"You know, Loveday, no one would have thought of such a thing if you had not been naughty before!" said my aunt, gently. "Have I not always been good to you?"
"Yes, Aunt Joyce."
"And yet, because I gave you a just reproof for carelessness, you answered me pertly, and then refused to make amends, as is every Christian person's duty, whether they be young or old. Was that right?"
"I suppose not!" I answered, softening a little. "But indeed, aunt, I am sure I did not break the glass. I never touched it, and was quite a distance away when I heard it crack."
"Very well, I will take your account of it!" said my aunt, after a little consideration. "But why could you not have said so, as well as to answer me so pertly?"