Miss Huntingdon said nothing in reply, but laid one of her hands across the other on her little work-table. Walter saw the action, but turned his head away and fidgeted in his chair. At last he said, "That's rather hard, auntie, to make me a moral coward again so soon." "Is it hard, Walter?" she replied gently. "The next best thing to not doing wrong is to be sorry for it when you have done it." "Well, Aunt Kate, I _am_ sorry--terribly sorry. I wish I'd never touched the horses. I wish that fellow Bob had been a hundred miles off yesterday afternoon." "I daresay, Walter; but is that all? Are you not going to _show_ that you are sorry? Won't you imitate, as far as it is now possible, little George Washington's moral courage?" "What! go and tell my father the whole truth? Do you think I ought?" "I am sure you ought, dear boy." Walter reflected for a while, then he said, in a sorrowful tone, "Ah, but there's a difference. George Washington didn't and wouldn't tell a lie, but I would, and did; so it's too late now for me to show moral courage." "Not at all, Walter; on the contrary, it will take a good deal of moral courage to confess your fault now. Of course it would have been far nobler had you gone straight to your father and told him just how things were; and then, too, you would not have been Dick's tempter, leading him to sin. Still, there is a right and noble course open to you now, dear boy, which is to go and undo the mischief and the wrong as far as you can." "Well, I suppose you are right, auntie," he said slowly, and with a heavy sigh; "but I shan't find _my_ father throwing his arms round me as George Washington's father did, and calling me his noble boy, and telling me he had rather I told the truth than have a thousand gold and silver cherry-trees." "Perhaps not, Walter; but you will have, at any rate, the satisfaction of doing what will have the approval of God, and of your own conscience, and of the aunt who wants you to do the thing that is right." "It shall be done," said her nephew, pressing his lips together and knitting his brows by way of strengthening his resolution; and he left the room with a reluctant step. He found his father, who had just come from the stables, in the dining- room. "Well, Walter, my boy," he said cheerily, "it isn't so bad with Forester after all. He has got an ugly cut; but he doesn't walk but very slightly lame. A week's rest will set him all right; but I shall send that Dick about his business to-morrow, or as soon as his quarter's up. I'd a better opinion of the boy." "Dick's not to blame," said Walter slowly. "Not to blame! How do you make out that? I'm sure, if he had had Forester well in hand, the accident couldn't have happened."