"What am I to do, Verena?" she said on the afternoon of that same day.
"What do you mean, Paulie? Your arm is better, is it not?"
"Yes; it doesn't hurt quite so much. But how can I wear the new blouse to-night?"
"Would it not be wiser," said Verena, "if you were to tell Aunt Sophy that you have burnt your arm? It is silly to make a mystery of it."
"But she will make me tell her how I did it."
"I daren't tell her that. I daren't even tell you."
"Anything you like. You are my own sister, and you must not betray me. But she must never know. Can't you think of something to get me out of this? Oh, dear! what is to be done?"
"I don't know what is to be done," she said, "if you haven't the courage to speak the truth. You have probably got into some scrape."
"I am sure you have, Paulie; and the sooner you tell the better. The longer you conceal whatever it is, the worse matters will grow."
"I am exceedingly sorry I told you," she said. "You are not half, nor quarter, as nice a sister as you used to be. Don't keep me. I am going into the shrubbery to help Penelope to look for Aunt Sophy's thimble."
Verena said nothing further, and Pauline went into the shrubbery.
"I seem to be getting worse," she said to herself. "Of course, I don't really want to help Penelope. How should I, when I know where the thimble is? There she is, hunting, hunting, as usual. What a queer, unpleasant child she is growing!"
"You might tell me everything to-day," said the child. "Where did you put it?"
"I have come to help you to look for it, Pen."
"There's no use in my fussing any longer," she said. "I've gone round and round here, and picked up leaves, and looked under all the weeds. There isn't a corner I've left unpoked into. Where's the good of troubling when you have it? You know you have it."
"I know nothing of the kind. There! I will tell you the simple truth. I have not got the thimble. You may believe me as much as you like."
"Then I'll believe just as much as nothing at all. If you haven't got the thimble, you know where it is. I'll give you until this time to-morrow to let me have it, and if you don't I'll go straight to Aunt Sophy."
"Now, Pen, you are talking nonsense. You have no proof whatever that I have touched the thimble; and what will Aunt Sophia say to a little child who trumps up stories about her elder sister?"