“But who spoilt it, let me ask?” said Captain Vallery. “As you spoilt the football, you should be the person to mend it, and you should not expect me to bring you a new one.”
“But I cannot mend it, papa,” said Norman.
“People often find that they cannot remedy the harm they have done,” observed his papa.
Norman, who was afraid that his papa might hear of the way he had treated his sister’s doll, did not ask any further questions.
All the next day he behaved much better. His finger hurt him, and morning and evening he went humbly to Fanny to get it dressed, because he found she did it so gently and carefully.
No one said anything about the doll, and he wondered what had become of it. Once or twice he thought that if he could find it he would put it out of the way altogether, for he was dreadfully afraid lest his granny or papa should discover that its head had been cut off. At last he thought he would dig a hole in the garden and put it into it, and cover it up, and then no one would be able to find it.
“Fanny has not told about it,” he thought, “she and Mrs Norton are the only people who know what I did, and as they have said nothing as yet, I hope that they will not.”
Norman did not consider that although neither his papa or mamma or granny might discover what he proposed doing, God would not only see him, but knew already the evil in his heart, and that should he continue to indulge his bad feelings, they would grow with his growth, and when he became a man they would too probably make him do things too terrible to mention.
As soon as he had made up his mind what to do, while Fanny was at her lessons, he stole into her room, expecting to find the doll. He saw that it was not in the doll’s house, and so he looked into her bed, and then he opened all her drawers, but no doll was to be found. He had seen her one day going in with it to granny’s room, so he thought it might be there. Mrs Leslie was downstairs, he therefore hoped that he might be able to creep in and search for the doll without being discovered. He listened, the drawing-room door was closed, and he knew that Susan was not in that part of the house, so, walking on tiptoes, in he stole. He looked about in every part of the room where he thought the doll might be placed.
“Perhaps Fanny puts it in one of the drawers,” he said to himself, “but then what would granny say if she found out that I had looked into them.”