“Don’t look at me, but listen, then, for I only told the story to get the moral in, so I can’t skip it. I wanted to tell Mrs. Abbott I took the pie, but the girls wouldn’t let me. I was just about as happy in my mind and jovial in my countenance as Bell seems to be.”
“Was there any fuss made?” asked Edna.
“O, plenty; Miss Blake was very angry at the outrage, she called it, and seemed to think the pie was planted there for a sort of trap to catch her in. Mrs. Abbott talked about it in school in that solemn-sweet way of hers and said she would like the offender to come to her room. I wasn’t brave enough to accept that invitation in defiance of the girls, and the next morning she made a new rule forbidding any girl to go into another one’s room after bed-time. At last the burden of my secret grew too tormenting, and three weeks after the lark I crawled into her room and confessed.”
“What did she say?” asked Fannie and Bell together.
“O, I wither up small when I think of it. She looked up from her Kensington work and said in the calmest way, ‘I knew it was you, dear, for I saw you fly up the front stairs. I was in the dark closet in the hall groping for an extra blanket, and old Margaret found a narrow Roman ribbon, the next morning, that had been tied around a braid, in the dining-room pantry. I recognized the ribbon as yours.’ And she took it from her desk and handed it to me.”
“You must have felt cheap!”
“O, my! And I felt worse still when she took my hand and said, ‘Lily, I have not cared a straw for your taking the pie, but it has hurt me to learn you were not high-principled enough to own what you had done!’ There I had been playing the innocent and unconscious, and she knew what I had done, and she had never told Miss Blake. I tell you, Bell, Mrs. Abbott is an angel, and ever since that time I have preferred telling her any thing to keeping it to myself.”
“Is that the moral?” asked Edna.
“Perhaps you don’t see it. Well, I’ll make it plainer. Don’t conceal your omissions and commissions from Mrs. Abbott; and, Fannie, you’ll be more comfortable if you let Bell go and tell her.”
Fannie hesitated a moment, then half sullenly gave her permission, and Bell flew off on her not too easy errand.