"Don't you know I asked you for it when you stood by the table making bread? and it slipped off my finger this afternoon into the water barrel!"
"Why, Susy!"
"And I was a coward, and didn't dare tell you, auntie. I thought maybe you'd forget I had it, and some time when you asked for it, I was going to say, 'Hadn't you better take a pair of tongs and see if it isn't in the water barrel?'"
"O, Susy!" said aunt Madge.
"She isn't any worse than me, auntie," said Grace. "Ma asked me how the mud came on my handkerchief, and I said Prudy wiped my boots with it. And so she did, auntie, but I told her to; and wasn't I such a coward for laying it off on little Prudy? I am ashamed—you may believe I am."
"I am glad you have told me the whole truth now," replied aunt Madge, "though it does make me feel sad, too, for it's too much like my hatchet story. O, do remember from this time, children, and never, never, dare be cowards again!"
Just then grandpa Parlin came to the door with a sad face, saying,—
"Margaret, please come up stairs, and see if you can soothe poor little Harry by singing. He is so restless that neither Maria nor I can do any thing with him."
This baby, Horace's brother, was sick all the time now, and once in a while Margaret's sweet voice would charm him to sleep when every thing else failed.