"What have you to say for yourself, Marian Lee?" Aunt Amelia's voice sounded far away. There were such lumps in Marian's throat she couldn't speak. "Answer me," commanded Aunt Amelia, "what have you to say?" Marian's tongue felt paralyzed. Perhaps it was unwilling to do its owner's bidding. It was certainly hard for that truthful little tongue to say the one word "Nothing." Aunt Amelia's face was terrible. "Do you mean to tell me that you haven't touched those cookies?" There was no retreat. Marian nodded her head. "Speak!" continued Aunt Amelia, "say yes or no? Do you dare to tell me that you didn't take the cookies?" It was all Marian did dare to do and her reply was "Yes." Aunt Amelia raised a long forefinger as she said, "Don't stand there and lie, Marian Lee, you took those cookies." "I did not." Lala grew pale when she heard that answer and saw the terrified eyes of the child. "Own up," she whispered as she passed the trembling sinner on her way to the dining-room. Marian looked beseechingly at Aunt Amelia, but her face was hard and pitiless. The child dared not "Be brave." "I did not touch the cookies," she repeated again and again. "How do you account for the disappearance of a whole jar of cookies, Marian, if you didn't eat them?" asked Uncle George upon his arrival. Marian had not thought of accounting for the loss of the cookies, but she took a deep breath and made a suggestion. "I s'pose a hungry tramp took 'em." The reply wasn't satisfactory. Uncle George frowned and Aunt Amelia smiled. The smile wasn't the kind she was in the habit of bestowing upon Ella. It was the sort that froze the blood in Marian's veins. She sank in a miserable little heap upon the floor and cried and cried. "Reform school is the place for children who steal and lie," said Aunt Amelia. Uncle George tried to make the child confess, but his efforts were vain. She would not. Threats were powerless. The more frightened Marian became the more vehemently she denied her guilt. Although it was Ella's birthday, and shouts of laughter could be heard from the sitting-room, Aunt Amelia produced a certain strap Marian was familiar with through past experience. "Spare the rod, spoil the child," was Mrs. St. Claire's favorite motto so far as her husband's small relative was concerned. "You can whip me till I die," sobbed Marian when she saw the strap, "but I can't say I took the cookies, because I didn't. How can I say I did, when I didn't?" Nor could Aunt Amelia nor Uncle George compel the child to say anything different. "You can whip me till I die," she insisted over and over, "but I can't say I took those cookies," and they finally believed her. "Go to bed," commanded Aunt Amelia. "I don't want to see a child who could die easier than she could tell the truth. Go!"