mother wanted him to: he scorned to add falsehood to
disobedience, and was more than willing to take his full share of
blame.

"If ma would whip me like everything," thought the boy, "I know I'd feel
better."

It was a long, winding path from the gate. The grounds looked very
beautiful in the golden light of the afternoon sun. The pink
clover-patch nodded with a thousand heads, and sprinkled the air with
sweetness.

Everything was very quiet: no one was on the piazza, no one at the
windows. The blinds were all shut, and you could fancy that the house
had closed its many eyes and dropped asleep. There was an awe about such
perfect silence. "Where could Grace be, and those two dancing girls,
Susy and Prudy?"

He stole along to the back door, and lifted the latch. His grandmother
stopped with a bowl of gruel in her hand, and said, "O, Horace!" that
was all; but she could say no more for tears. She set down the bowl,
and went up to him, trying to speak; but the words trembled on her lips
unspoken.

"O, grandma!" said Horace, setting little Pincher down on a chair, and
clutching the skirt of her dress, "I've been right bad: I'm sorry--I
tell you I am."

His grandmother had never heard him speak in such humble tones before.

"O, Horace!" she sobbed again, this time clasping him close to her
heart, and kissing him with a yearning fondness she had hardly ever
shown since he was a little toddling baby. "My darling, darling boy!"

Horace thought by her manner they must all have been sadly frightened
about him.

"I got lost in the woods, grandma; but it didn't hurt me any, only
Pincher got his foot caught."

"Lost in the woods?" repeated she: "Grace thought you went home to
dinner with Willy Snow."

So it seemed they had not worried about him at all: then what was
grandma crying about?

"Don't go up stairs, dear," said she, as he brushed past her and laid
his hand on the latch of the chamber door.

"But I want to see ma."

"Wait a little," said Mrs. Parlin, with a fresh burst of tears.

"Why, what is the matter, grandma; and where's Grace, and Susy, and
Prudy?"

"Grace is with your mother, and the other children are at aunt Martha's.
But if you've been in the woods all day, Horace, you must be very
hungry."

"You've forgot Pincher, grandma."

The boy would not taste food till the dog's foot had been bandaged,
though, all the while his grandmother was doing up the Wound, it seemed
to Horace that she must