eized upon by Patty and Edith in hot indignation.

"Miss Campbell! Miss Campbell!" they cried. "What do you think that
naughty, greedy, mean Maggie has done? She's stolen poor Towzer's
goodies--all of them--at least, half--the box was half full, nurse says,
and though nurse all but saw her, she will say she didn't take them, and
there was no one else in the night nursery this afternoon. Maggie was
left in alone for half an hour, because she had a little cold, and when
nurse and the little ones came in Towzer's box was gone."

Eleanor leant on the hall table for a moment. A sick faint feeling went
through her. Maggie, her own sister, to be capable of such a thing! To
her rigorous inexperience it seemed terrible. The idea that taking what
was not one's own and then denying it was hardly, at seven years old, to
be described by the terms such actions on the part of an older person
would deserve, would have seemed to her weak tampering with evil.

"Oh, Patty," she exclaimed, "are you sure?"

"Come up and see for yourself. Nurse will tell you," said the twins, too
eagerly indignant to notice or pity their sister's distress; and Eleanor
followed their advice.

The charge seemed sadly well founded. Nurse described the position of
the boxes.

"Up on the high chest of drawers, where none of the littler ones than
Miss Maggie could climb," she said. Flop's was empty, Towzer's still
half full, when they went out that afternoon, and nurse returning
unexpectedly, had caught sight of Maggie running out of the night
nursery--"where she had no business to be. I had told her to stay in the
other room by the fire, and there's nothing of hers in there; for you
know, miss, she sleeps in Miss Patty's room."

"And what reason did she give for being there?"

"She got very red, miss, and at first wouldn't say anything; but I saw
she had been clambering up--a chair was dragged out of its place--and
so then she said it was to stretch out of the window to gather some of
the ivy leaves to ornament her goodies. And I was that silly, I believed
her," said nurse, with considerable self-disgust.

"You didn't look at the bon-bons then?"

"Never thought of them, miss, till we came in, and the little ones asked
for some, and I reached up and found only the one box, and that empty."

"And you've looked all about? You're sure it hasn't fallen down?"

"Oh dear, no! Of course I looked everywhere. Besides, I saw Miss Maggie
after something in there