'That comes of your open fires,' observed Fernando.
'I don't know. I think it was a list of names! Oh! how vexed he'll be, and Wilmet; for she told me never to get on a chair over the fender, and I forgot.' Bobbie's round face was puckering for a cry.
'No, no, don't cry, Bob; I told you to get up, and I'll say so,' said Lance, smothering her in his arms after the wont of consoling brothers.
'I dare say he'll not miss it,' said Fernando good-naturedly; 'he very seldom meddles with those things.'
Bobbie's great round grey eyes came out over Lance's shoulder, and flashed amazement and wrath at him. 'I'm not going to tell stories,' she said stoutly.
'No,' said Lance, equally scandalized; 'I thought you had learnt better, Fernando.'
Robina, be it observed, was ignorant of Fernando's untaught state.
'I only said you could hold your tongue,' was of course Fernando's rejoinder.
'That's just as bad,' was the little girl's response.
'But, Lance, you held your tongue about your black eye.'
'That's my affair, and _nobody else's_,' said Lance, flushing up and looking cross at the allusion.
'I think Wilmet will, because it was disobedience! I don't think she'll let me have any butter at tea,' Bobbie nearly sobbed. 'Mr. Audley won't punish! But he'll look--' and she quite cried now.
'And do you like that better than not telling?' said Fernando, still curious.
She looked up, amazed again. 'I must! I don't like it! But I couldn't ever have a happy Christmas if I didn't tell! I wish they would come that I might have it over.'
The street door opened at the moment, and Mr. Audley and Wilmet came in together from Lady Price's convocation of the parish staff. Fernando heard the sobbing confession in the passage, and Lance's assurance that he had been art and part in the disobedience, and Wilmet gravely blaming the child, and Mr. Audley telling her not to think so much about the loss as the transgression; and then the door was shut, and he heard no more, till Mr. Audley came in, examined the chimney-piece, and performed the elegy of the list in a long low whistle.
'Not much; only I must go and get another list made out, and I am afraid I shall not be able to come in again before church.'
'Wilmet recommended not taking the prize prayer-book to church, and she acquiesced with tears in her eyes. A good child's repentance is a beautiful thing--