nybody now,
I'd like to know?"

"Never mind what he has done with it," said Charlotte. "Come at once."

"Papa told me I must apologize. He will ask me if I did."

"Apologize, then. Be quick."

"It is not--" began Anderson, who was sober enough now, and becoming
more and more annoyed, but Charlotte interrupted him.

"Eddy!" said she.

"I am very sorry I took your candy," piped Eddy, in a loud,
declamatory voice which was not the tone of humble repentance. The
boy, as he spoke, eyed the man with defiance. It was as if he blamed
him, for some occult reason, for having his own property stolen. The
child's face became, under the forced humiliation of the apology,
revolutionary, anarchistic, rebellious. He might have been the
representative, the walking delegate, of some small cult of rebels
against the established order of regard for the property-rights of
others. The sinner, the covetous one of another's sweets, became the
accuser. Just as he was going out of the door, following the pink
flutter of his sister's muslin gown, he turned and spoke his whole
mind.

"You had a whole big glass jar of them, anyhow," said he, "and I
didn't have a single one. You might have given me some, and then I
shouldn't have stolen them. It's your own fault. You ought not to
have things that anybody else wants, when they haven't got money to
pay for them. It's a good deal wickeder than stealing. It was your
own fault."

But Eddy had then to deal with his sister. She towered over him,
pinker than her pink muslin. The ruffles seemed agitated all over her
slender, girlish figure, like the plumage of an angry bird. She
caught her small brother by the shoulders, and shook him violently,
until the dark hair which he wore rather long waved and his whole
head wagged.

"Eddy Carroll," she cried, "aren't you ashamed of yourself? Oh,
aren't you ashamed of yourself? Begging, yes, _begging_ for candy! If
you want candy, you will buy it. You will not beg it nor take it
without permission. If you cannot buy it, you will go without, if you
are a brother of mine."

The boy for the first time quailed somewhat. He looked at her, and
raised a hand childishly as if to ward off something.

"I didn't ask, Charlotte," he half whimpered. "If he was to offer me
any now, I would not take it. I would just fling it in his face. I
would, Charlotte; I would, honest."

"I heard you," said Charlotte.

"I didn't ask him. I said if he had given me a little of