ANOTHER LIE.
"WE'VE been in to Mrs. Monroe's to see Ernest," said Mrs. Drake, when she was seated at the supper-table. "He looks as if he had lost a good deal of blood."
"Well, the young rascal deserves to suffer; it may save him from the gallows."
Henry shuddered, but did not speak.
"What do you mean?" inquired his wife.
"Mean!" he repeated the words in an angry tone. "Why, if it has come to this, that my pockets are picked, my trunks unlocked, and my tools ruined by a scamp of a boy, it's time something was done about it,—that's all! If I caught my boy in such tricks, I'd whip him within an inch of his life."
Henry's eyes were fastened, on his plate. If he had ever had an idea of confessing that he, instead of his cousin, was the guilty boy, it vanished at once.
When he had finished his supper, his mother told him that Ernest wished to see him. When he had left the room, she said,—
"I do wish, John, you wouldn't talk so strong. Don't you see that if Henry were to disobey you, he wouldn't dare to tell you of it. It seems to me, parents ought to show their children that if they are really penitent, they will be forgiven."
"I don't know what you're driving at, wife; but if it's anything about the tools, you may stop hinting. Just as soon as Ernest is out of bed. I'll haul him over the coals as sure as my name is John Drake. I never forgive, as you have learned long ago."