"No doodies, and poor Maggie!" was her lament.
To divert her "Miss Tammell" carried her off to the drawing-room. And thus Maggie was sent to Coventry.
By bedtime her features were hardly to be recognised, so blurred and swollen with crying was the poor little face. But still there was no confession. "I didn't touch Towzer's goodies," she persisted over and over again. Eleanor's heart ached, but still duty must be done.
"How can she persist so?" she said, turning to nurse.
"Yes indeed, Miss Maggie, how can you?" said nurse. "It would almost make one believe her if there was a chance of it, but I've had every bit of furniture out of the room, or turned about just to make sure. Miss Maggie's a queer child, once she takes a thing into her head; but she's not exactly obstinate either."
So Maggie, "unshriven and unforgiven," was put to bed in her misery, with no kind kiss or loving "good-night." "If she would but own to it, dreadful though it is," sighed Eleanor. But two days—two days, and, worse still, two nights—went by, and still the child held out. Eleanor herself began to feel quite ill, and Maggie grew like a little ghost. Her character seemed to have changed strangely—she flew into no passions, and called no one any names; apparently she felt no resentment, only misery. But how terribly crushing was the Pariah-like life she led in the nursery, probably none of those about her had the least idea of. On the third morning there came a change.
"Miss Campbell! Miss Campbell!" said Patty and Edith, slipping with bare feet and night-gowned little figures into their sister's room—quite against orders, but it was a great occasion—"wake up, wake up, Maggie's confessed!"
And so it proved. There sat Maggie upright in her cot, with flushed face and excited eyes.
"I took them, Miss Campbell. I did take Towzer's goodies, and eatened them up."
Eleanor sat down on the side of the little bed.