“‘Naughty,’ uncle!  How can you say such things to me?  Mamma never did; and papa never does!  Pray do not say such things again to me, uncle!  I have not been used to hear them.”

The gentleman shrugged his shoulders, and turned to Ishmael, saying: 

“I am more grieved than angry, my boy, to see you stand convicted of theft and falsehood.”

“I was never guilty of either in my life, sir,” said Ishmael.

“He was! he was!  He stole the things, and then told stories about it, and tried to lay it on us!  But we can prove it was himself!  We are two witnesses against one! two genteel witnesses against one low one!  We are gentleman’s sons; and who is he?  He’s a thief!  He stole the things, didn’t he, Ben?” questioned Master Alfred.

Ben turned away.

“And we thrashed him well for it, didn’t we, Ben?”

“Yes,” said Ben.

“So you see, sir, it is true! there are two witnesses against you; do not therefore make your case quite hopeless by a persistence in falsehood,” said the gentleman, speaking sternly for the first time.

Ishmael dropped his head, and the Burghe boys laughed.

Little Claudia’s eyes blazed.

“Shame on you, Alfred Burghe! and you too, Ben!  I know that you have told stories yourselves, for I see it in both your faces, just as I see that this poor boy has told the truth by his face!” she exclaimed.  Then putting her arm around Ishmael’s neck in the tender, motherly way that such little women will use to boys in distress, she said: 

“There! hold up your head, and look them in the face.  It is true, they are all against you; but, then, what of that, when I am on your side.  It is a great thing, let me tell you, to have me on your side.  I am Miss Merlin, my father’s heiress; and he is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  And I am not sure but that I might make my papa have these two bad boys hanged if I insisted upon it!  And I stand by you because I know you are telling the truth, and because my mamma always told me it would be my duty, as the first lady in the country, to protect the poor and the persecuted!  So hold up your head, and look them in the face, and answer them!” said the young lady, throwing up her own head and shaking back her rich ringlets.

CHAPTER XXII.

ISHMAEL GAINS HIS FIRST VERDICT.

  Honor and shame from no condition rise;
  Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
  Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,
  The rest is all but leather and prunella.

  —­Pope.

So conjured, Ishmael lifted his face and confronted his accusers.  It was truth and intellect encountering falsehood and stupidity.  Who could doubt the issue?

“Sir,” said the boy, “if you will look into the pockets of that young gentleman, Master Alfred, you will find the stolen fruit upon him.”