CHAPTER XXII.
THE CONFESSION.
THE morning came, but brought no comfort. Mrs. Ginniss had crept up
stairs, and, throwing herself upon the bed, had fallen asleep with
the tears still trickling down her honest face; but to Teddy's
haggard eyes no sleep had come, and he had only changed his position
by stretching himself upon the floor beside the box, his head upon
his arm, his aching eyeballs still shaping in the darkness the form
and features of the little sister whom he had sullenly resolved was
lost to him forever as punishment for his fault in concealing her.
"If I'd brought her back," thought he again and again, "they'd have
let me get seeing her once in a while; they couldn't have refused me
so much; and maybe some day I'd have been a gentleman, and could
have talked with her free and equal. But now she's lost to them and
to me; and, when I tell the master, he'll call me a mean thief and a
liar, and a rascal every way, and he'll never look at me again; and
mother"--
Then he would wander away into dreary speculation upon what his
another would say when the truth was made known to her, and she
found the boy on whom she had lavished her love and pride dishonored
and discarded by the master to whom he owed so much, and whose
patronage she had taken such pains to secure for him; and then, like
the weary burden of a never-ending song, would come again the
thought,--
"But if I'd brought her back at the first!"
The bitter growth of the night, however, had borne fruit in a
resolution firm as it was painful; and, when Teddy came up stairs to
make himself fit to go to the office, he was able to say some words
of comfort to his mother, assuring her that no blame to her could
come of what had happened, and that it was possible the child might
yet be found, as he should warn those of her loss who could use
surer means to search for her than any at their command.
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