isted Eddy.

"Hush, dear," said Charlotte, painfully.

"Here, son, pass your plate for this chicken," said Anderson; and
Eddy, with a shrewd glance of half-comprehension from one to the
other, passed his plate and subsided, after a muttered remark that he
didn't see why Charlotte minded.

"Wasn't that a bully supper?" he whispered, pressing close to his
sister when they entered the sitting-room after the meal was finished.

"Hush, dear," she whispered back.

"Ain't you glad you stayed? You wouldn't, if it hadn't been for me."

Charlotte turned and looked at him sharply. Mrs. Anderson had
lingered in the dining-room to give some directions to the maid, and
Anderson had stepped out on the porch for a second's puff at a cigar.

"Eddy Carroll," said she, in a whisper, "you didn't?"

Eddy faced her defiantly. "Didn't what?"

"You didn't tell a lie about that?"

Eddy lowered his eyes, frowned, and scraped one foot in a way he had
when embarrassed. "Amy did say something about it was such a pleasant
day and Addison," he replied, doggedly.

"But did she say they were really going there, and would not be back?"

"Anna said if they went there they could not get back."

"But did she say they were going? Tell me the truth, Eddy Carroll."

Eddy scraped.

"I see they did not," said Charlotte, severely.

"Eddy, I don't know what papa will say."

"I know," said Eddy, simply, with a curious mixture of ruefulness and
defiance. Then he added: "If you want to be mean enough to tell on a
feller, after he's been the means of your having such a supper as
that (and you were hungry, too; you needn't say you wasn't; you ate
an awful lot yourself), you can."

"I am not going to tell unless I am asked, when I certainly shall not
tell a lie," replied Charlotte; "but papa will find it out himself, I
am afraid, Eddy."

"I shouldn't wonder if he did," admitted Eddy.

"And then, you know--"

"Yes, I know; but I don't care. I have had that bully supper, anyhow.
He can't alter that. And, say, Charlotte."

"What?" asked Charlotte, severely. "I am ashamed of you, Eddy."

"I don't see why papa don't get a store, like him"--he jerked an
expressive shoulder towards the scent of the cigar smoke--"and then
we could have things as good as they do."

But then Charlotte turned on him with fierceness none the less
intense, although necessarily subdued. "Eddy Carroll," she whispered,
with a long-drawn sibilance, "to turn on your father,