Julia coughed. She would have liked to have taken the praise to herself, but with Maudie standing open-mouthed at her side it was not altogether feasible. She coughed again. "You--you forget Maudie," she remarked mildly. "My dear, noble, generous child! I forget nothing--and I will forget nothing for either of you. Here," she went on, in ringing accents which would have brought down the house if Regina had been speaking at any public meeting, "is a small recognition from your mother, and at dinner-time to-night your father shall speak to you." "I think," remarked Julia, ten minutes later, when she and her sister were on the safe ground of that part of the garden which belonged exclusively to them, "I think we got out of that uncommonly well, Maudie, don't you?" "Yes, but it was skating on thin ice," said Maudie. "I don't know how you dared, Ju. You told mother you didn't like telling lies!" "Well," said Julia, "it is to be hoped it will never come out, for if it does there will be the devil to pay and no mistake about it." It was as well for Regina's peace of mind that the thin ice never broke, and that the actual truth never came to light. You know what the poet says--"A lie that is half a lie is ever the hardest to fight." Well, the same idea holds good for a truth that is half a truth. I don't say that Julia's account of the difference between themselves and Gwendoline Hammond was wholly a lie, but it was certainly not wholly the truth; indeed, it was such a garbled account that nobody concerned therein but would have found it difficult to recognize it. "Wasn't mother's little sermon about the devil to pay lovely?" said Julia, swinging idly to and fro while Maudie stood contemplating her gravely. "Yes," said Maudie, "but she was quite right. That's the best of mother--she's always so full of sound common-sense." "Except when she calls you her brave, noble child!" rejoined the sharp wit. "I don't know," said Maudie, reflectively, "that that was altogether mother's fault." "Perhaps it wasn't. It will be just as well for you and for both of us as far as that goes, if mother doesn't happen to just mention the matter to Tuppenny's mother. I think I was a fool not to have safeguarded that point." "There's time enough," said Maudie. "You can lead up to it when you go in, because, you know, Ju, if they ever do find out--" "Yes, there _will_ be the devil to pay," put in Julia. "You are quite right." It was astonishing how sweet a morsel the phrase seemed to be to the child. "You'll get saying it to Miss Drummond," said Maudie, warningly. "Well, if I do," retorted Julia, "I shall have had the pleasure of saying it--that will be something."