I stood on tiptoe to tug at a fat cedar-ball, glossy, brown, and deeply pitted.

"Oh, Mr. Frank! won't you please cut it off for me?"

He whipped out his knife and severed the twig.

"Did you come all the way from the house alone?"

I had never, within my memory, told a deliberate lie. My cheeks burned like fire; my eyes dropped guiltily. My tongue did not trip or tangle.

"Yes, sir."

There was a dread silence. My ears rang, my heart was sinking slowly and sickeningly into my heels. I had bethought myself just as he put the question, that Cousin Molly Belle might be put in jail if he found out that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the guilty tongue. I raised my eyes in sullen defiance.

"It isn't so _dreadful_ far! I came all by my loney-toney self!"

My friend laughed.

"My dear little girl, there is no great harm in that. Only, I wouldn't run away again if I were you. Your aunt might be uneasy if she missed you."

"She isn't at home," I answered incautiously. "She 'n' Uncle Carter 'n'

Cousin Burwell 'n' Cousin d.i.c.k have gone to Mr. Cunningham's."

"Ah!" The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was not regretful. "Isn't Miss Molly Belle at home? You would be sorry to make _her_ anxious, I know."

The cedar-branches thrilled slightly, as at the flight of a startled bird. Mr. Frank did not notice it, but the movement nerved me. I spoke hastily, walking away from the tree toward the gate.

"Oh, yes, _she's_ at home! I reckon she must have been taking a nap when I came away. I'm going right back now."

I had never dreamed that lying was such an easy performance.

"I'll take you home. Wait a minute!"

Snap was grazing on the roadside. Another saddle-horse stood by with drooping head, his bridle hanging loosely in the bend of Mr. Frank's arm. I was lifted to Snap's back; my escort walked beside me through the gate, and along the lane, one hand on me, and leading the second horse.

"I suppose you are wondering what I am doing with two horses," he said lightly. "It is a very funny story. I'll tell you and Miss Molly Belle when we get to the house. It will make you both laugh."

He had given me Snap's bridle to hold, as if I were riding all by myself. He thought it would please me. In other circ.u.mstances I should have been glad and proud to be so mounted, and by him. But from my lofty seat I could see over his head across the field of corn which lay to the left of the road. Something or somebody was running between the close rows in a straight line from the plantation gate to the house. Running like a deer, or a greyhound--or Cousin Molly Belle. She must get home and up to her room before we got there.

"Oh, Mr. Frank!" I cried. "I have dropped my cedar-ball!" And when he had picked it up, "Won't you please make Snap walk very slow? I am afraid I might fall off."

"What has got into you to-day, little d.u.c.h.ess?" He had a dozen pet names for me, and my heart smote me sore at sight of his kind, honest face.

"It isn't like you to be afraid of horses,--and you and Snap are old friends. You will never be such a rider as Miss Molly Belle if you learn to be nervous."

Not another sound fell from my lips until I was put down gently at the front gate of my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out, cross lines in her forehead and cross tones in her voice.

"I do declar', Miss Molly--(How-you-do, Mars' Frank?) I do declar', Miss Molly, you're enough to drive anybody crazy with you' wild tomboy ways.

Me 'n' Miss Molly Belle, we've been jes' raisin' the plantation fo' you, and hyar you come home a-riding Mars' Frank Mo'ton's horse, gran' as you please, and n.o.body knowin' whar you been ever sence dinner-time. Miss Molly Belle 'll be mighty obleeged to you for fotchin' of her home, Mars' Frank. She'll be down pretty soon for to tell you so herself. Walk into the parlor, please, sir. Jim, you take Mr. Mo'ton's horses to the stable. And Miss Molly, you jes' stay thar 'n' ent'tain Mr. Mo'ton like a little lady tell you' cousin comes down sta'rs."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END OF THE PRANK.

"I was put down at my uncle's house, and Flora bustled out."]

I obeyed with docility that must have surprised the autocrat. Meek and miserable, I preceded the guest to the parlor, although every minute spent under his unsuspecting eyes was a danger and a pain. I made no attempt to "entertain him." Seated upon a high chair, my feet swinging dolefully six inches above the floor, I fingered the wretched cedar-ball, redolent of rosin through much bruising, my pink sunbonnet hanging from the knotted strings to the small of my back, and with difficulty refrained from crying. I had never been wretched just in that way before. Two imperative duties had met plump and face to face, with a shock that jarred all preconceived principles of belief and action out of plumb. Cousin Molly Belle had trusted me to keep her secret, and I saw no way of doing it except to lie outright and repeatedly. The sin lashed my conscience until I could have located in my corporeal frame the exact whereabouts of the uncomfortable possession. So absorbed was I by individual upbraidings that Flora's barefaced fabrication of the search her young mistress and she had had for the runaway pa.s.sed unrebuked by so much as a look. It was no comfort to me to hear another person lie even more glibly than myself. Flora was an ignorant colored person, I, a baptized white child of the covenant who could read the Bible for herself.

Mr. Morton tried to make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, suited my taste best of them all. Yesterday I should have been tickled clean out of the proprieties by the chance of talking to him all by myself for twenty minutes, sitting up in Aunt Eliza's parlor, just like grown folks.

The twenty minutes were like one hundred in sloth and weight before the tap of high heels on the oaken stairs and the swish of skirts against the banisters advised us who was coming.

She walked into the room with her head high and chin level; her eyes shone and her coloring was superb. She had never been more beautiful, and never so dignified. Her admirer felt both of these facts, and was moved to mute inquiry into the cause of the singular mood. His glowing eyes questioned hers while she shook hands with him and then sat down, and held out her hand silently to me, without a smile. I went as straight to her as a wounded bird to shelter, dropped upon a stool beside her and rested my cheek against her knee, my hand in a grasp that was close and loving, and--or so I fancied--monitory. My heart retorted upon writhing conscience that she was worth sinning for. I added, dogged and desperate, that I would do it again, if she needed to have it done.

"Flora says that you have been very uneasy about this little lady," said Mr. Frank, the dumb questioning still in his eyes, while he led the talk into safer paths. "And that you have been hunting for her all over the plantation."

"Flora said what was not true. I knew where she was, and did not look for her at all or anywhere."

The metallic quality in her voice did not belong to it, and her articulation was carefully clear, not at all like the gliding vowels and consonantal elisions that help make musical the speech of the Southern girl.

Mr. Frank looked puzzled. Had I not been present, he would have got at the answer to the enigma. I felt this, but my hand was still in Cousin Molly's, and I comprehended that she willed me to stay where I was.

"I have had an adventure, if she has not," resumed Mr. Frank, merrily.

"You may have seen me arrive with two saddle-horses? I was on my way here, riding Snap. As I pa.s.sed John's upper tobacco-field, I saw him at the barn. So I tied Snap to a tree and went to speak to John. While we were talking a negro ran up, all out of breath, to say that a man and a woman had stolen my horse. The negro was too far off to recognize the fellow, but he saw him untie Snap, mount him, help a little woman in a red dress to get up behind him, and then ride away at a rattling pace.

Fortunately, John's riding-horse was standing at the barn door. I was in the saddle before the story was done, put him at the nearest fence, and was after the thieves. I must have gained upon them--Wildfire can outrun any other horse in the county, and I did not spare him--for the rascals left their booty and got away with whole skins. I met Snap just this side of Willis's Creek, going home like the sensible creature he is. He had been ridden hard, and there were welts on his sides where he had been whipped, but I got him back safe. It was a risky thing--their stealing him. Everybody about here knows the star in his forehead and his white hind foot. The first white man that met the thieves would have taken them up. I have no doubt that they belonged to a gang of gypsies that are roaming through this neighborhood. A wagon-load of them pa.s.sed our house yesterday and camped last night at the Crossroads. I saw them there last night as I went home from Court. On my way back this evening I'll give them a call and let them understand that this is an unhealthy country for that sort of gentry. Horse-thieves and grapevines are found conveniently near to one another, sometimes."

In the horror of the hearing, I must have cried out but for the warning squeeze that made my finger-joints slip upon each other and the bones ache. The muscles of my face stiffened until I felt it losing all resemblance to Molly Burwell. I was sure that it looked like a gray old woman's, and instinctively turned it into the folds of my cousin's skirt. Suppose Mr. Frank had called upon the gypsies before coming here!

If he had not come to us at all to-day--what would have happened? Would he have had the innocent strangers hanged upon the convenient grapevine?

Could he be prevented from doing this now unless the truth were told him? _That_, of course, was not to be thought of. Better have the gypsy gang driven out of the county and a man and a woman strung up, than let Cousin Molly Belle go to jail for wearing men's clothes. She would die sooner than confess to any man, least of all to this one, that she had worn--_pantaloons!_--and ridden Snap as people who wear the things always ride.

How little I knew her was to be proved.

She let go my fingers all at once, pressed her palms together hard, and sat up very straight, settling her eyes upon Mr. Frank's. When she spoke, the metallic ring was that of a taut piano-string.

"You will please not go near the gypsies. _I_ stole your horse. Just for fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that you must be on Wildfire, and that Snap stood no chance of keeping ahead of him."

The listener's face was a study. He stood up and stared down at her, at first in incredulous stupefaction, then, frowningly.

"_You--took--my--horse!_ You were that 'little woman,' then? Who was the man?"

"There was no man. The negro did not see straight, or he told you a lie.

Molly was with me, and, as you see, her frock is pink. We were out walking. We both got on the horse. It was a silly, silly prank, and all my fault."

The frown disappeared; the perplexity remained. He glanced at me, and my eyes fell. I so wanted Mr. Frank Morton to think well of me!

"But Molly said--" he began.

She took him up quickly.

"I know what Molly said. I was close by and heard every word. She was trying to shield me. I told her that I could be put in jail if anybody knew what I had done. I tempted the poor, loyal, loving little soul to tell the first falsehood that ever soiled her tongue. It was a wicked--a vile--a _mean_ thing in me! I loathe myself when I think of it. Oh, Namesake!"--encircling me suddenly with her arm--"we will ask G.o.d together to forgive us. I am the sinner--not you!"

I was wetting her sleeve with tears, shed more for her distress than for my sin.