ad fallen out of Horace's pocket.

"Where did you get this watch?"

No answer.

"Why, Horace, it doesn't tick: have you been playing with it?"

Still no answer.

"Now, that's just like you, Horace, to shut your mouth right up tight,
and not speak a word when you're spoken to. I never saw such a boy! I'm
going down stairs, this very minute, to tell my mother you've been
hurting her beautiful gold watch!"

"Stop!" cried the boy, suddenly finding his voice; "I reckon I can fix
it! I was meaning to tell ma! I only wanted to see that little thing
inside that ticks. I'll bet I'll fix it. I didn't go to hurt it, Grace!"

"O, yes, you feel like you could mend watches, and fire guns, and be
soldiers and generals," said Grace, shaking her ringlets; "but I'm going
right down to tell ma!"

Horace's lips curled with scorn.

"That's right, Gracie; run and _tell_!"

"But, Horace, I ought to tell," said Grace, meekly; "it's my duty! Isn't
there a little voice at your heart, and don't it say, you've done
wicked?"

"There's a voice there," replied the boy, pertly; "but it don't say what
you think it does. It says, 'If your pa finds out about the watch, won't
you catch it?'"

To do Horace justice, he did mean to tell his mother. He had been taught
to speak the truth, and the whole truth, cost what it might. He knew
that his parents could forgive almost anything sooner than a falsehood,
or a cowardly concealment. Words cannot tell how Mr. Clifford hated
deceit.

"When a _lie_ tempts you, Horace," said he, "scorn it, if it looks ever
so white! Put your foot on it, and crush it like a snake!"

Horace ate dry toast again this morning, but no one seemed to notice it.
If he had dared look up, he would have seen that his father and mother
wore sorrowful faces.

After breakfast, Mr. Clifford called him into the library. In the first
place, he took to pieces the mangled watch, and showed him how it had
been injured.

"Have you any right to meddle with things which belong to other people,
my son?"

Horace's chin snuggled down into the hollow place in his neck, and he
made no reply.

"Answer me, Horace."

"No, sir."

"It will cost several dollars to pay for repairing this watch: don't
you think the little boy who did the mischief should give part of the
money?"

Horace looked distressed; his face began to twist itself out of shape.

"This very boy has a good many pieces of silver which were given him to
buy fire-crack