Still no answer.
"Now, that's just like you, Horace, to shut your mouth right up tight, and not speak a word when you're spoken to. I never saw such a boy! I'm going down stairs, this very minute, to tell my mother you've been hurting her beautiful gold watch!"
"Stop!" cried the boy, suddenly finding his voice; "I reckon I can fix it! I was meaning to tell ma! I only wanted to see that little thing inside that ticks. I'll bet I'll fix it. I didn't go to hurt it, Grace!"
"O, yes, you feel like you could mend watches, and fire guns, and be soldiers and generals," said Grace, shaking her ringlets; "but I'm going right down to tell ma!"
Horace's lips curled with scorn.
"That's right, Gracie; run and tell!"
"But, Horace, I ought to tell," said Grace, meekly; "it's my duty! Isn't there a little voice at your heart, and don't it say, you've done wicked?"
"There's a voice there," replied the boy, pertly; "but it don't say what you think it does. It says, 'If your pa finds out about the watch, won't you catch it?'"
To do Horace justice, he did mean to tell his mother. He had been taught to speak the truth, and the whole truth, cost what it might. He knew that his parents could forgive almost anything sooner than a falsehood, or a cowardly concealment. Words cannot tell how Mr. Clifford hated deceit.
"When a lie tempts you, Horace," said he, "scorn it, if it looks ever so white! Put your foot on it, and crush it like a snake!"