Oh dear! if papa could only come home, I'd
rather take the hardest whipping he could give me, for though that's
dreadful while it lasts, it's soon over. But he can't come now; they
wouldn't think of letting him come home again so soon; so he can't punish
me in that way; and I wouldn't take it from anybody else," she added,
with hotly flushing cheeks and flashing eyes; "and I don't believe he'd
let anybody else do it."
She turned to his letter and gave it a second reading.
"How kind and loving papa is!" she said to herself, penitent tears
springing to her eyes, "It's plain he hasn't been told a word about my
badness--by Grandpa Dinsmore or Mamma Vi, or anybody else. That was good
in them.
"But now I must tell it all myself; he says for me to do it at once, and
I won't go on disobeying him by waiting; besides, I may as well have it
over."
Her writing-desk stood on a table near at hand, and opening it, she set
to work without delay.
She began with a truthful report of her efforts to escape becoming one of
Signor Foresti's pupils and its failure; giving verbatim the
conversations on the subject in which she had taken part; then described
with equal faithfulness all that had passed between the signor and
herself on the day of their collision, and all that followed in the
school-room and at Viamede.
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