"Why, Jenny Fleming! Would you dare do such a thing?"
"Yes, I would then, Emily Dean. Why not? He wouldn't eat me up; and he is the best man that ever was. I would tell him in a minute."
"Yes: but, Jenny, the thing is, that I can't tell of myself without telling of Emma; and that would get her into trouble at home; because her mother charged her never to say one word about it," said Florry. "I know she did, because Emma told me so herself that day."
"I don't care if you stole fifty red plants, and blue ones, too!" exclaimed Jenny. "I do think you are the best girl that ever lived. But what will you do then? You can't go on so."
"I shall wait till I can see father or mother before I do anything," replied Florry. "As to the watch, Tilly has put it away somewhere, and forgotten it."
[CHAPTER V.]
EATING HUMBLE-PIE.
WHEN Flora Lester went home that night, she was about as unhappy as a child could be. If she had been perfectly innocent—if she could have defied anybody to show that she had ever laid her hand on what did not belong to her—the matter would not have been quite so bad. The injustice would even then have been hard to bear; but she felt that she could have borne it better. But there was that unlucky red plant. And then that Emma should have told of her! That was the hardest of all.
Florry was too unhappy to cry, too unhappy to care anything about reading or eating, or playing with her kittens. Her father did not come home, as she expected, but sent a note to say that he should not return till the next day; so she could not follow out her resolution to tell him all about the trouble. Mrs. Hausen was not at home, either; and even if she had been, Florry felt that, as matters stood between herself and Emma, she could not ask that lady's advice.
"Oh, if I only had somebody to tell me what to do!" she murmured, as she sat looking out of the window. And as she said so, a sudden thought flashed across her, and she got up and put on her hat directly.