‘Certainly not; I shall keep the boy with myself.’

It was with the greatest effort that Albinia held her tongue.  To have Sophy not only making common cause against her, but inciting her father to interfere about Maurice, was well-nigh intolerable, and she only endured it by sealing her lips as with a bar of iron.

By-and-by came the reflection that if poor Sophy had a secret cause of bitterness, it was she herself who had given those thoughts substance and consciousness, and she quickly forgave every one save herself and Algernon.

As to her little traitor son, she took him seriously in hand at bedtime, and argued the whole transaction with him, representing the dreadful consequences of meddling with people’s private papers under trust.  Here was poor Lucy taken away from home, and papa made very angry with Ulick, because Maurice had been meddlesome and mischievous; and though he had not been beaten for it, he would find it a worse punishment not to be trusted another time, nor allowed to be with Ulick.

Maurice turned round with mouth open at hearing of papa’s anger with Ulick, and the accusation of having brought his friend into trouble.

’Why, Maurice, you remember how unhappy we were, Gilbert and all.  It was because it was sadly wrong of Gilbert and Lucy to have let Algernon in without papa’s knowing it, and it was not right or friendly in Ulick to laugh at what was so wrong, and grieved us all so much.’

‘It was such fun,’ said Maurice.

’Yes, Maurice; but fun is no excuse for doing what is unkind and mischievous.  Ulick would not have been amused if he had cared as much for us as we thought he did, but, after all, his drawing the picture would have done no harm but for a little boy, whom he trusted, never thinking that an unkind wish to tease, would betray this foolish action, and set his best friends against him.’

‘I did not know I should,’ said Maurice, winking hard.

’No; you did not know you were doing what, if you were older, would have been dishonourable.’

That word was too much!  First he hid his face from his mother, and cried out fiercely, ’I’ve not—­I’ve not been that and clenched his fist.  ‘Don’t say it, mamma.’

’If you had known what you were doing, it would have been dishonourable,’ she repeated, gravely.  ’It will be a long time before you earn trust and confidence again.’

There was a great struggle with his tears.  She had punished him, and almost more than she could bear to see, but she knew the conquest must be secured, and she tried, while she caressed him, to make him look at the real cause of his lapse; he declared that it was ’such fun’ to provoke Algernon, and a little more brought out a confession of the whole course of persecution, the child’s voice becoming quite triumphant as he told of the success of his tricks, and his mother, though appalled at their audacity, with great difficulty hindering herself from manifesting her amusement.