“Do you know, Rachel dear, I am convinced that it must be a mistake.  Conrade assures me he never touched the nest.”

“So he persists in it?”

“And indeed, Rachel dear, I cannot help believing him.  If it had been Francie, now; but I never knew Conrade tell an untruth in his life.”

“You never knew, because you always believe him.”

“And it is not only me, but I have often heard the Major say he could always depend on Conrade’s word.”

Rachel’s next endeavour was at gentle argument.  “It must be dreadful to make such a discovery, but it was far worse to let deceit go on undetected; and if only they were firm—­” At that moment she beheld two knickerbocker boys prancing on the lawn.

“Didn’t you lock the door?  Has he broken out?  How audacious!”

“I let him come out,” said Fanny; “there was nothing to shut him up for.  I beg your pardon, dear Rachel; I am very sony for the poor little birds and for Grace, but I am sure Conrade did not take it.”

“How can you be so unreasonable, Fanny—­the evidence,” and Rachel went over it all again.

“Don’t you think,” said Fanny, “that some boy may have got into the park?”

“My dear Fanny, I am sorry for you, it is quite out of the question to think so; the place is not a stone’s-throw from Randall’s lodge.  It will be the most fatal thing in the world to let your weakness be imposed on in this way.  Now that the case is clear, the boy must be forced to confession, and severely punished.”

Fanny burst into tears.

“I am very sorry for you, Fanny.  I know it is very painful; I assure you it is so to me.  Perhaps it would be best if I were to lock him up, and go from time to time to see if he is come to a better mind.”

She rose up.

“No, no, Rachel!” absolutely screamed Fanny, starting up, “my boy hasn’t done anything wrong, and I won’t have him locked up!  Go away!  If anything is to be done to my boys, I’ll do it myself:  they haven’t got any one but me.  Oh, I wish the Major would come!”

“Fanny, how can you be so foolish?—­as if I would hurt your boys!”

“But you won’t believe Conrade—­my Conrade, that never told a falsehood in his life!” cried the mother, with a flush in her cheeks and a bright glance in her soft eyes.  “You want me to punish him for what he hasn’t done.”

“How much alike mothers are in all classes of life,” thought Rachel, and much in the way in which she would have brought Zack’s mother to reason by threats of expulsion from the shoe-club, she observed, “Well Fanny, one thing is clear, while you are so weak as to let that boy go on in his deceit, unrepentant and unpunished, I can have no more to do with his education.”

“Indeed,” softly said Fanny, “I am afraid so, Rachel.  You have taken a great deal of trouble, but Conrade declares he will never say a lesson to you again, and I don’t quite see how to make him after this.”