So as Patty set out to accuse Tilly of the theft the little spark of hope which the deepened mystery had aroused in her was almost quenched.
Tilly came to the door, and Patty tried to look at her with judicial severity, as she had seen Uncle Reuben look at offenders, but she broke down suddenly at sight of Tilly's beaming, friendly face.
"Oh, Tilly," she cried, "you will give them back, won't you? It was such a dreadful thing to do! But no one shall ever know; Uncle Reuben says so, if you will only give them back."
The warmth and color faded out of Tilly's face until it looked wan and pinched in the morning light.
"It's no matter about the chickens. You needn't even have given those back. Of course it's always terrible to--to take things, but if you'll only give back the spoons."
"_The spoons?_" echoed Tilly, and there seemed to be such genuine bewilderment in her tone that Patty felt inclined to believe Uncle Reuben's accusation that she was sly. "I don't know anything about any spoons."
"Tilly, your mitten caught on the basket and was ravelled, and--and I saw you knitting it up in the barn." Patty's tone was rather pitiful than accusing, but Tilly's face flamed angrily.
"I didn't s'pose you was one to go peeking round and spying on folks," she cried. "I guess I've got a right to do a little knitting anywheres that I'm a mind to, and--and you can't say 'twas a mitten."
"I saw it, Tilly, a red mitten. This is the yarn that was caught on the basket." Polly drew from her pocket the red ravelling, wound upon a bit of paper.
"_Yarn!_" echoed Tilly, contemptuously taking a bit between her thumb and finger. "I call that worsted!"
"And are your mittens yarn?" cried Tilly, eagerly. "Because that would prove--"
"I never said they were," said Tilly, quickly, the color deepening in her cheeks, "I never said anything about them, and I sha'n't show them to anybody. And I never saw your old spoons in all my born days--so there!" Tilly would have shut the door, but Patty prevented her.
"Oh, Tilly, I'm afraid you don't realize. Uncle Reuben will send a sheriff to arrest you. And the girls have thought so much of you--especially Ruby Nutting."
"You needn't say a word about _her_." Tilly swallowed a lump chokingly. "You needn't tell her, nor anything. She hasn't got anything to do with it. She's give me all the chance I've had to get good times, and her father has been awful good to us; and now I suppose they won't be any more. But--but poor folks must expect to be called thieves, and took up. The worst is, now they'll be sure Alf broke into that store, and he didn't! no more'n your cousin did! No, that isn't the worst. The worst is that Miss Farnham, the milliner, won't have me now! She was going to take me half a day to do chores and help her; 'twas an awful good chance! It chirked mother right up to think we were going to be so much like folks, and now--" Tilly kept her voice steady, but it was by a strong effort.