Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and flung the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond her.
"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and," running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell is all cracked to pieces!"
"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the result of it.
"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
"Purcel."
"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.