"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."