"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!"
Horace ate dry toast again this morning, but no one seemed to notice it. If he had dared look up, he could have seen that his father and mother wore sorrowful faces.
After breakfast, Mr. Clifford called him into the library. In the first place, he took to pieces the mangled watch, and showed him how it had been injured.
"Have you any right to meddle with things which belong to other people, my son?" he said soberly.
Horace's chin snuggled down into the hollow place in his neck, and he made no reply.
"Answer me, Horace."