"O Ted, dear," said his mother, "don't mind about it. It is no use vexing oneself so much about things when they are done and can't be put right."
"But, mother," he persisted, "it isn't quite that. Of course I'm very sorry for it to be broken, however it happened. But what makes me so uncomfortable is that I've begun to wonder so if perhaps I did do it. I know we were all talking about your peacock-feather screens yesterday. I said to Percy and Cissy there were some loose ones in one of them, and perhaps you'd give me some for my card of feathers, and I've got a sort of wondering feeling whether perhaps I did touch the screen and knocked down the china flower-basket without knowing, and it's making me so unhappy, but I didn't mean to hide it from you if I did do it."
He looked up so wistfully that his mother's heart felt quite sore. She considered a minute before she replied, for she was afraid of seeming to make light of his trouble or of checking his perfect honesty, and yet, on the other hand, she was wise, and knew that even conscientiousness may be exaggerated and grow into a weakness, trying to others as well as hurtful to oneself.
"I am sure you did not mean to hide anything from me, dear Ted," she replied, "and I don't think it is the least likely that you did break the vase. But even if you did, it is better to think no more about it. You answered me sincerely at the time, and that was all you could do. We are only human beings, you know, dear Ted, always likely to make mistakes, even to say what is not true at the very moment we are most anxious to be truthful. We can only do our best, and ask God to help us. So don't trouble any more, even if we never find out how it happened."
Then she stooped and gave Ted an extra good-night kiss, and in five minutes his loving anxious little spirit was asleep.
But the very next day the mystery was explained.
"Ted's newseum is bootly neat," Cissy announced at breakfast-time, "but he wants some more fevvers. I tried to get down muzzer's screen off the mantelpiece to see if there was some loose ones, but I couldn't reach it. Muzzer, won't you give Ted some loose ones?"
Mother looked at Ted, and Ted looked at mother.
"So you were the mouse that knocked over my little vase, Miss Cissy!" said mother. "Do you know, dear, that it was broken? You should not try to reach things down yourself. You will be having an accident, like 'Darling' in the picture-book, some day, if you don't take care."
The corners of Cissy's mouth went down, and her eyes filled with tears.