winter morning, when they came quaking along behind their mother
into this grim place, it was still in the squalor of morning
confusion. Later, Harris would open the shutters and tidy things
up; he would dust the painted pine bureau and Blair's photographs
and the slender green bottle of German cologne on which the red
ribbons of the calendar were beginning to fade; now everything
was dark and bleak and covered with dust. Mrs. Maitland sat down;
the culprits stood hand in hand in front of her.

"Blair, don't you know it's wrong to take what doesn't belong to
you?"

"I took it," said the 'fraid-cat, faintly; she moved in front of
her brother as though to protect him.

"Blair told you to," his mother said.

"Yes," Blair blurted out, "it was me told her to."

"People that take things that don't belong to them go to hell,"
Mrs. Maitland said; "haven't you learned that in Sunday-school?"

Silence.

"You ought to be punished very severely, Blair--and Nannie, too.
But I am very busy this morning, so I shall only say"--she
hesitated; what on earth should she say! "that--that you shall
lose your allowance for this week, both of you."

One of them muttered, "Yes'm."