“Oh now, Rosie, sit down and finish your game,” said Evelyn persuasively, “I’m sure no one really suspects you of such dishonesty.”
“Then let them say so,” returned Rosie. But no one spoke, and turning haughtily away, she left them.
“Oh girls, why didn’t you speak?” exclaimed Evelyn, always inclined to be a peacemaker. “Let me run after her and tell her that of course you don’t suspect her of any such thing.”
“I can’t,” said Sydney, “for it wouldn’t be true. I saw her peep.”
“And so did——” began Lulu, but raising her eyes while the words were on her tongue, and catching a glance of grave displeasure from her father, who, noticing that something was amiss among the players, had drawn near and was now standing opposite her on the other side of the table, she broke off suddenly, leaving her sentence unfinished.
Her eyes fell and her cheeks flushed hotly under his glance, but he turned and moved away without speaking, and the game went on, but with less enjoyment than before on the part of the young players.
Lulu particularly, troubled by a consciousness that she was no longer in full favor with her dearly-loved father, had almost lost her interest in it.
Rosie was still more uncomfortable, knowing that Sydney’s and Lora’s accusation was not undeserved, but she was far too proud to own it just.
She sauntered into an adjoining room, where the little ones were engaged in a game of romps, and was soon in their midst apparently the merriest of the merry, but in fact only making a determined effort to drown the reproaches of conscience, for no one so carefully trained in the knowledge of right and wrong as she had been, could be guilty of even the smallest act of dishonesty and deception without suffering in that way.
She, however, gave no sign of it till, on reaching their sleeping apartment, her mother turned to her with the most sadly reproachful look she had ever bestowed upon her.