She held up as she spoke a pretty and valuable little china ornament which always stood on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It was broken—quite spoilt—it could never be the same again.
"Oh dear," exclaimed Ted, "what a pity! Your dear little flower-basket. I am so sorry. How could it have got broken?"
"I don't know," said his mother. "I found it lying on the floor. It seemed as if some one had knocked it over without knowing. You are sure you were not trying to reach anything off the mantelpiece yesterday evening?"
"Sure," said Ted, looking sorry and puzzled.
"It stood just in front of my screen of peacock feathers," his mother went on. She did not in the very very least doubt his assurance, but his manner gave her the feeling that if she helped his memory a little, he might be able to throw some light on the mystery.
"In front of the peacock-feather fan," he repeated absently.
"Yes," said his mother, "but do not say anything about it, Ted. We may find out how it happened, but I do not like questioning every one about it. It gives the servants a feeling that I don't trust them, for they always tell me if they break anything. So don't say anything more about it to any one."
"No," said Ted. His tone and manner were still a little puzzled, as if something was in his mind which he could not make clear to himself, and his mother, knowing that he sometimes was inclined to take things of the kind too much to heart, made up her mind to think no more about her poor little vase, and to treat its breakage as one of the accidents we have all to learn to bear philosophically in daily life. But though no more was said, Ted did not forget about it: it worried and puzzled him behind other thoughts, as it were, all day, and little did he or his mother think who was really the innocent culprit.
Late that night, just before going to bed herself, Ted's mother glanced into his room, as she often did, to see that the boy was sleeping peacefully. The light that she carried she shaded carefully, but a very wide-awake voice greeted her at once.
"Mother," it said, "I'm not asleep. Mother, I do so want to speak to you. I've not been able to go to sleep for thinking about the little broken vase."