“Oh, Boy!”
The cry came from Miss Letty, and Boy tried to shuffle past without looking at her, but she caught him by the arm.
“Boy,” she said, her sweet voice shaking with suppressed excitement, “how could you tell a lie?”
He stopped—uneasily shifting one foot against the other, and keeping his eyes cast down. She stretched out her soft, kind little hand.
“Come with me,” she continued. “Come and talk to me alone, and tell me why you were so wicked, and then we will go and ask the Major’s pardon.”
She looked at him steadily. And her sweet face, and tender eyes full of tears, were more than the child’s unnatural stoicism could bear. His little chest heaved—his lips quivered.
“I—— I——” and he got no further, but broke down in a wild fit of sobbing. Miss Letty put her arm round him, and gently led him away. The Major, who had stood grim and rigid in the hall, watched her go, and coughed fiercely, unaware that the ubiquitous Alister McDonald was standing on the threshold of the hall where the little scene had taken place, and was watching him inquisitively, with his little hands in his little trouser pockets as usual.
“Hullo, Major!” said this imp: “Don’t you cry!”
“Eh—what? Cry! Me! God bless my soul! Go to—— the North Pole with you!” snapped out the Major irascibly. “What business have you here, sir, staring at me?”