y a silly kid--but Alice knew
better. Why did you do it?"

He turned to Alice, but she was now too deep in tears to get a word out.

H.O. looked a bit frightened, but he answered the question. We have
taught him this. He said--

"I thought they'd give us more if I said poor children than if I said
just us."

"_That's_ cheating," said Dicky--"downright beastly, mean, low
cheating."

"I'm not," said H.O.; "and you're another." Then he began to cry too. I
do not know how the others felt, but I understand from Oswald that he
felt that now the honour of the house of Bastable had been stamped on
in the dust, and it didn't matter what happened. He looked at the
beastly holly that had been left over from the sauce and was stuck up
over the pictures. It now appeared hollow and disgusting, though it had
got quite a lot of berries, and some of it was the varied kind--green
and white. The figs and dates and toffee were set out in the doll's
dinner service. The very sight of it all made Oswald blush sickly. He
owns he would have liked to cuff H.O., and, if he did for a moment wish
to shake Alice, the author, for one, can make allowances.

Now Alice choked and spluttered, and wiped her eyes fiercely, and said,
"It's no use ragging H.O. It's my fault. I'm older than he is."

H.O. said, "It couldn't be Alice's fault. I don't see as it was wrong."

"That, not as," murmured Dora, putting her arm round the sinner who had
brought this degrading blight upon our family tree, but such is girls'
undetermined and affectionate silliness. "Tell sister all about it, H.O.
dear. Why couldn't it be Alice's fault?"

H.O. cuddled up to Dora and said snufflingly in his nose--

"Because she hadn't got nothing to do with it. I collected it all. She
never went into one of the houses. She didn't want to."

"And then took all the credit of getting the money," said Dicky
savagely.

Oswald said, "Not much _credit_," in scornful tones.

"Oh, you are _beastly_, the whole lot of you, except Dora!" Alice said,
stamping her foot in rage and despair. "I tore my frock on a nail going
out, and I didn't want to go back, and I got H.O. to go to the houses
alone, and I waited for him outside. And I asked him not to say anything
because I didn't want Dora to know about the frock--it's my best. And I
don't know what he said inside. He never told me. But I'll bet anything
he didn't _mean_ to cheat."

"You _said_ lots of kind people would be ready to give mo