, Emily. If you could deceive my pa and ma,
you couldn't deceive God, who saw Charlie break the mirror. Don't do it,
Emily, please don't?"

"We will do it too, and if you peach on us, we'll say it was your fault
that Rover did it. How will you like that, Miss Jessie!" said Charlie.

"I will tell my father the exact truth about it," said Jessie, rising to
her feet.

"Very well, Miss Tell Tale," retorted Emily. "We'll fix you then. Charlie
and I will say that you threw the ottoman against the mirror, and broke it
yourself, won't we, Charlie?"

"Yes, and they will believe both of us, because they will think you are
lying to escape being whipped for your fault. Ah! ah! Miss Jessie, we'll
fix you, see if we don't!" and Charlie held up his finger, and grinned in
his cousin's face.

"My father knows I wouldn't tell a lie," replied Jessie firmly; "and I do
hope you won't, for oh! it is _so_ wicked, and _so_ mean. Nobody loves,
trusts, or believes a liar. Please Charlie, please Emily, let me tell pa
just how it happened. He won't be very angry. I know he won't. But if he
is, I will tell him to whip me, instead of scolding Charlie."

Charlie winced under this noble speech of Jessie's, and for a moment was
inclined to yield. But his sister's temper was roused, and she urged him
to stick to her, and to say that Jessie threw the ottoman, "and now," said
she, "I will go and tell my aunt directly."

Jessie turned pale; not with fear for herself, but because she shrank from
a conflict with her cousins, in her mother's presence. Fortunately, a
happy thought came into her mind, and rising, she whispered to herself,
"Yes, I will go and ask Uncle Morris to come in." And Jessie glided into
the library.

Her uncle was not there. He had left it an hour before, and feeling
slightly dozy had gone into the back parlor to catch a little nap on the
sofa. This parlor was separated from the one in which the children had
been playing only by folding-doors. Their noise at blind-man's-buff, had
roused him from his nap, and he had heard all that afterwards passed
between them. When, therefore, Emily went to tell Mrs. Carlton her great
lie, he thought it was time for him to interfere. So he passed round by
the hall into the front parlor, just as Jessie with her sad face was
returning from the library.

"Oh, I'm so glad you are here, Uncle Morris!" exclaimed Jessie, her face
brightening and growing much shorter. "Please come into the parlor."