as they set the
booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent
approach. The sponge caught him--with a delightful, squelching
flump--full and fair on the top of his sleek head.

Anne shrieked with delight. "Oh Jerry, did you _hear_ him say 'Damn'?"

They rushed back to the library to tell Eliot. But Eliot couldn't see
that it was funny. He said it was a rotten thing to do.

"When he's a servant and can't do anything to _us_."

"I never thought of that," said Jerrold. (It _was_ pretty rotten.) ...
"I could ask him to bowl to me and let him get me out."

"He'd do that in any case."

"Still--I'll have _asked_ him."

But it seemed that Pinkney was in no mood to think of cricket, and they
had to be content with begging his pardon, which he gave, as he said,
"freely." Yet it struck them that he looked sadder than a booby-trap
should have made him.

It was just before bed-time that Eliot told them the awful thing.

"I suppose you know," he said, "that Pinkney's mother's dying?"

"I didn't," said Jerrold. "But I might have known. I notice that when
you're excited, _really_ excited, something awful's bound to happen....
Don't cry, Anne. It was beastly of us, but we didn't know."

"No. It's no use crying," said Eliot. "You can't do anything."

"That's it," Anne sobbed. "If we only could. If we could go to him and
tell him we wouldn't have done it if we'd known."

"You jolly well can't. It would only bother the poor chap. Besides, it
was Jerry did it. Not you."

"It _was_ me. I filled the sponge. We did it together."

What they had done was beastly--setting booby-traps for Pinkney, and
laughing at him when his mother was dying--but they had done it
together. The pain of her sin had sweetness in it since she shared it
with Jerry. Jerry's arm was round her as she went upstairs to bed,
crying. They sat together on her bed, holding each other's hands; they
faced it together.

"You'd never have done it, Anne, if I hadn't made you."

"I wouldn't mind so much if we hadn't laughed at him."

"Well, we couldn't help _that_. And it wasn't as if we'd known."

"If only we could tell him--"

"We can't. He'd hate us to go talking to him about his mother."

"He'd hate us."

Then Anne had an idea. They couldn't talk to Pinkney but they could
write. That wouldn't hurt him. Jerry fetched a pencil and paper from the
schoolroom; and Anne wrote.

Dear Pinkney: We didn't know. We wouldn't have done