"If ma would whip me like everything," thought the boy, "I know I'd feel better."
It was a long, winding path from the gate. The grounds looked very beautiful in the golden light of the afternoon sun. The pink clover-patch nodded with a thousand heads, and sprinkled the air with sweetness.
Everything was very quiet: no one was on the piazza, no one at the windows. The blinds were all shut, and you could fancy that the house had closed its many eyes and dropped asleep. There was an awe about such perfect silence. "Where could Grace be, and those two dancing girls, Susie and Prudy?"
He stole along to the back door, and lifted the latch. His grandmother stopped with a bowl of gruel in her hand, and said, "O Horace!" That was all; but she could say no more for tears. She set down the bowl, and went up to him, trying to speak; but the words trembled on her lips unspoken.
"O, grandma!" said Horace, setting little Pincher down on a chair, and clutching the skirt of her dress, "I've been right bad: I'm sorry—I tell you I am."
His grandmother had never heard him speak in such humble tones before.
"O, Horace!" she sobbed again, this time clasping him close to her heart, and kissing him with a yearning fondness she had hardly ever shown since he was a little toddling baby. "My darling, darling boy!"
Horace thought by her manner they must all have been sadly frightened about him.
"I got lost in the woods, grandma; but it didn't hurt me any, only Pincher got his foot caught."
"Lost in the woods?" repeated she. "Grace thought you went home to dinner with Willy Snow."