I laid down my book. There was something arresting about this injunction, something even startling. I looked into the strange dark eyes that seemed almost to fill the small elf-like face, and I knew that a confidence of a highly unpleasant character was imminent. “I put a dead mouse into the soup,” little Alice whispered. “Oh;” I exclaimed feebly. I felt inclined to put her down very abruptly from my knee, and it was with difficulty that I controlled this impulse. “What made you do such a thing? Now it will all be wasted.” “Nobody knows about it,” the child continued artlessly, rubbing her cheek against mine. “Once I put something in before, when people were coming for dinner. It was fun to watch them all looking so stiff and solemn, and eating away, and not knowing what was there all the time. I laughed so much that ma sent me out of the room. But I wouldn’t do that with you, because I love you.” Her strange little face turned to mine, and her eyes were fixed on me. She must have seen the disgust I felt, for she began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. Then she hid her face against my shoulder and clung to me. I was frightened to scold her. Even without my having said anything she seemed to shrivel up like some bruised and broken plant. I patted her head gently, and at once she brightened. She got down from my knee and began to dance about the floor. Meanwhile I was left with the problem of the soup. If the soup were strained the mouse, I supposed, would be discovered; but if it were, as it was practically certain to be, simply turned out into a tureen, the revelation might come too late. On the other hand, were I to turn informer, little Alice would most surely be whipped, and, whether she deserved it or not, the idea of that was as revolting to me as would be the ill-treatment of a sick monkey. There was a young girl in the kitchen who looked after the rougher work, and I thought of explaining the matter to her, after swearing her to secrecy, but before I had made up my mind I heard the others downstairs. They had evidently got back from church, and now I didn’t know what to do. Uncle George, preceded by Gordon and Thomas in their green plush suits, came into the parlour. Uncle George began to warm himself before the gas-stove. “You should have come out this morning, Peter,” he said, in his gentle voice. “You missed a treat.”