"I sha'n't do any such thing," she said. "I can't confess what I didn't do. If my mother were here she would believe me. If you were to keep me shut up in the room for weeks and weeks, when I came out I should say the same thing. Please excuse me for being disrespectful, but I think, except Aunt Tom, you are very disagreeable aunts, especially Aunt Joanna. I think I would rather live with people that were no relation to me."
So saying, she walked from their presence and went to her own room, and again shut and bolted the door. At dinner-time a tray containing several slices of dry bread and a glass of water was placed outside, and Mary Ann's voice told her that her dinner was waiting. For some time Teddy refused to open, but finally her hunger overcame her pride, and she took the tray into her room, and just as she finished Miss Thomasine came to the door and tapped gently.
"Teddy, my dear," she said, in a low voice, at the key-hole, "let me in—your aunt Tom."
And Teddy again opened the door.
"Oh, my dear, how you have been crying!" said gentle little Miss Thomasine. "I am so grieved about it all. Teddy, if you will only tell us the truth, even now we will forgive you. Tell me quietly how it happened."
"Aunt Tom, I can't make up a story. I didn't break the bowl. Why don't you believe me? There are other people in the world besides me! Why don't you think that some one else did it? Why am I the only person that could have broken it?"
"My dear, you forget that the evidence against you is very strong. When I came down stairs to go with you to the garden you came out of the parlor with the pieces of china in your hand, hidden under your apron. Why did you take the trouble to hide them, or to touch them at all, if you were not the one who broke the bowl?"
Theodora was silent for a few minutes. She stood gazing at her aunt, looking straight from her fearless brown eyes into Miss Thomasine's gentle blue ones.
"That is true," she said at last. "It does seem queer. But, for all that, I didn't break the bowl, Aunt Tom."
"Then can you not tell me who did?"