Poor Gertie! Her cup of humiliation was indeed full to the brim.
Somehow, all the storm of reproach which Rupert had intended to launch forth, died away into calm.
"There, Gertie," said he, "do please stop crying. We've had enough of that, and things might be worse."
"I don't see that they could," was Gertie's pathetic answer.
"Oh yes, they might be," cried Kenneth. "You've made a clean breast of it on your own account, and that's something."
"Yes," echoed Rupert, "that's something."
Gertie, after this, made her way upstairs to wash her tearstained face, having learnt a lesson in truth and honour which she was destined to remember all her life long.
* * * *
"Oh, Rupert! A monkey, and all for my very own!"
So cried Marcia on her birthday morning, when Rupert presented his novel gift.