"Titia! Titia!" called out her father. "Christian, what is the matter?
What was my little girl crying for?"

There was no avoiding the domestic catastrophe, even had Christian
wished to avoid it, which she did not. She felt it was a case in which
concealment was impossible--wrong. Dr. Grey ought to be told, and
Miss Gascoigne likewise.

"Your little girl has been very naughty, papa; but others have been
more to blame than she. Come with me--will you come too, Aunt
Henrietta?--and I will tell you all about it."

She did so, as briefly as she could, and in telling it she discovered one
fact--which she passed over, and yet it made her glad--that Dr. Grey,
like herself, had been kept wholly in the dark about the engagement of
Miss Bennett as governess.

"I meant to have told you today, though, after I had given her sufficient
trial," said Miss Gascoigne, sullenly; "I had with her the best of
recommendations, and I do not believe one word of all this story--that
is," waking up to the full meaning of what she was saying, "not without
the most conclusive evidence."

"Evidence," repeated Dr. Grey. "You have my wife's word, and my
daughter's."

"Your daughter is the most arrant little liar I ever knew!"

The poor father shrank back. Perhaps he knew, by sad experience, that
Aunt Henrietta's condemnation was not altogether without foundation.