“Perhaps you did not tell me so, Flutters,” Hazel answered, “but you let me think it, which was very wrong and mean of you.”
“Look out, Hazel,” chimed in Starlight, shaking his head significantly, “ten to one you never gave him a chance to say a word about it. You have an awful, rushing way, sometimes, of taking things for granted.”
So Starlight was siding against her too, and Hazel looked toward the Marberrys for sympathy; but they were so ignorant of the facts of the case, and always so kindly disposed toward that little waif, Flutters, that both of them wore the most neutral expression possible.
Flutters's face flushed gratefully under Starlight's warm championship.
“No, Miss Hazel,” he said, slowly, “you never gave me a chance to tell you, and until you caught hold of my wrist in the vestibule, and told me what I must do and what I mustn't, I did not know that you even thought I had never been to church.”
“Didn't you really? Well, that's very queer,” for when an idea was firmly implanted in Hazel's mind, she felt as though every one ought, somehow or other, to be intuitively aware of it. However, she was going to try to be reasonable, and so she descended from a tone of evident displeasure into one of grieved forbearance.
“But, Flutters, if what you say is true”—Flutters straightened up under this insinuation, but unbent right away as Hazel wisely added, “and of course it is, then why, when I found the first place in the Prayer-Book for you, did you not whisper, 'You need not bother, Miss Hazel, I know about the Prayer-Book,' or something like that, instead of letting me go on and find place after place for you?”
For a moment Flutters seemed at a loss what to answer, then looking her frankly in the face, he said, with charming simplicity, “I thought it would be more respectful not to say anything; and better to let you, being my little mistress, do just as you pleased without interfering.”
Hazel showed she was touched by this confession; but Starlight could not resist the temptation to add, “besides, I warrant you, you told Flutters not to speak, when you collared him there in the vestibule.”
“Yes, you did, Miss Hazel,” said Flutters, truthfully.