For Aunt Jane’s voice had a ring in it like mamma’s, and this little bit of tenderness was inexpressibly comforting.

‘My poor dear child,’ she said, ’mamma will soon come home, and then you will be all right.’

‘I shouldn’t have done it if mamma had been there!’

‘No, and now you are sorry.’

‘Will mamma be very angry?’

’She will be grieved that you could not hold out when you were tempted; but I am sure she will forgive you if you write it all to her.  And, Val, you know you can have God’s forgiveness at once if you tell Him.’

‘Yes,’ said Valetta gravely; then, ’I did not before, because I thought every one made so much of it, and were so cross.  And Georgie and Nellie don’t care at all.’

‘Nor Maura?’

‘Oh, Maura does, because of Kalliope.’

‘How do you mean?’

Valetta sat up on her aunt’s lap, and told.

’Maura told me!  She said Kally and Alec both were at her, but her mamma was vexed with them, and said she would not have her scolded at home as well as at school about nothing; and she told Theodore to go and buy her a tart to make up to her, but Theodore wouldn’t, for he said he was ashamed of her.  So she sent the maid.  But when Maura had gone to bed and to sleep, she woke up, and there was Kally crying over her prayers, and whispering half aloud, “Is she going too?  My poor child!  Oh, save her!  Give her the Spirit of truth—­“’

‘Poor Kalliope!  She is a good sister.’

’Yes; Maura says Kally is awfully afraid of their telling stories because of Richard—–­the eldest, you know.  He does it dreadfully.  I remember nurse used to tell us not to fib like Dick White.  Maura said he used to tell his father stories about being late and getting money, and their mother never let him be punished.  He was her pet.  And Maura remembers being carried in to see poor Captain White just before he died, when she was getting better, but could not stand, and he said, “Truth before all, children.  Be true to God and man.”  Captain White did care so much, but Mrs. White doesn’t.  Isn’t that very odd, for she isn’t a Roman Catholic?’ ended Valetta, obviously believing that falsehood was inherent in Romanists, and pouring out all this as soon as her tears were assuaged, as if, having heard it, she must tell.

‘Mrs. White is half a Greek, you know,’ said Aunt Jane, ’and the Greeks are said not to think enough about truth.’

‘Epaminondas did,’ said Valetta, who had picked up a good deal from the home atmosphere, ‘but Ulysses didn’t.’

’No; and the Greeks have been enslaved and oppressed for a great many years, and that is apt to make people get cowardly and false.  But that is not our concern, Val, and I think with such a recollection of her good father, and such a sister to help her, Maura will not fall into the fault again.  And, my dear, I quite see that neither you nor she entirely realised that what you did was deception, though you never spoke a word of untruth.’