'Mamma's brooch!' said Mr. Ellis, with a look of assumed astonishment. 'Why, which of you presumed to wear your mamma's brooch?' But he added almost immediately, 'I need not inquire further: I am sorry to say I have had some sad experience of deception in my eldest daughter, and have observed in her that silly vanity, that makes outside show a cover for inward defects. Go!' he added sternly to Mabel; 'I have nothing more to say to you to-night. It nearly sickens me to think that I have a daughter base enough to conceal faults, which she is not afraid of committing.'
With conscious shame and distress, Mabel quitted the dining-room; and Julia also was retreating, when her papa told her to remain, as he had something to say to her.
Though Julia felt very sorry for her sister, and would have been glad to speak a word of comfort to her, yet she was so anxious to hear from her papa something about the lost brooch, that she was not at all reluctant to remain; so planting herself by her mother's side, she stood patiently to listen to what further Mr. Ellis had to say.
'Did you know, Julia, that Mabel had on your mamma's brooch when you went for a walk?' inquired papa.
Julia hung down her head, yet she answered truthfully;
'Yes, papa, I did know, for I begged her not to wear it.'
'And when she persisted in doing so, why did you not appeal to your mamma?'
To this question there came no response, so Mr. Ellis continued:
'Let me warn you, my little girl,' he said kindly, 'never to connive at faults in your brothers or sisters; it is to them a cruel kindness, which both they and you may live to be sorry for in after life.'
As Mr. Ellis said this, he drew from his waistcoat-pocket the glittering trinket, which had been the innocent cause of so much anxiety, and placing it in his wife's hand, said: