Some weeks later, after her recovery, her mother, one morning, said quietly, “Lettie, let us count up the cost of your doing as you liked.”
Lettie trembled, but her mother went on.
“There’s your dress and hat and shoes ruined and lost in the river—consequently the loss of your visit to your Aunt Joe; there’s your illness, which deprived you of the school-closing festivities; and the doctor’s bill, which took all the money I had saved for our trip to the seashore this summer.”
She was going on, but Lettie, now thoroughly penitent, suddenly resolved to make a clean breast of all her losses, and have the thing over.
“Oh, mother!” she cried, burying her face in her mother’s lap, “that isn’t all my losses; I must tell you, I can’t bear it any longer alone,” and then with sobs and tears she told the dismal story of the robbery.
“Lettie,” said her mother, “I knew all that the very day it happened. After you had gone to Stella’s the policeman came to the house to see if you had told him the truth. When he told me what you had said I went to your room and discovered the loss.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Lettie, “I’ll never—never”—
“If I had not learned it then,” went on her mother, “I should have known it later, for in your delirium you talked of nothing else; you went over that fearful scene constantly. I feared it would really affect your reason.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Lettie, “you never told me!”
“We will not speak of it again,” said her mother; “I think you have learned your lesson.”