"Come, Claudia! Come away, my love," said the lady, who had just arrived
at the spot.
"No, aunt, if you please; I am going to stand by this poor boy here! He
has got no friend! He is telling the truth, and nobody will believe
him!" said the little girl, tossing her head, and shaking back her black
ringlets haughtily.
It was easy to see that this little lady had had her own royal will,
ever since she was one day old, and cried for a light until it was
brought.
"Claudia, Claudia, you are very naughty to disobey your aunt," said the
gentleman gravely.
The little lady lifted her jetty eyebrows in simple surprise.
"'Naughty,' uncle! How can you say such things to me? Mamma never did;
and papa never does! Pray do not say such things again to me, uncle! I
have not been used to hear them."
The gentleman shrugged his shoulders, and turned to Ishmael, saying: "I am more grieved than angry, my boy, to see you stand convicted of
theft and falsehood."
"I was never guilty of either in my life, sir," said Ishmael.
"He was! he was! He stole the things, and then told stories about it,
and tried to lay it on us! But we can prove it was himself! We are two
witnesses against one! two genteel witnesses against one low one! We are
gentleman's sons; and who is he? He's a thief! He stole the things,
didn't he, Ben?" questioned Master Alfred.
Ben turned away.
"And we thrashed him well for it, didn't we, Ben?"
"Yes," said Ben.
"So you see, sir, it is true! there are two witnesses against you; do
not therefore make your case quite hopeless by a persistence in
falsehood," said the gentleman, speaking sternly for the first time.
Ishmael dropped his head, and the Burghe boys laughed.
Little Claudia's eyes blazed.
"Shame on you, Alfred Burghe! and you too, Ben! I know that you have
told stories yourselves, for I see it in both your faces, just as I see
that this poor boy has told the truth by his face!" she exclaimed. Then
putting her arm around Ishmael's neck in the tender, motherly way that
such little women will use to boys in distress, she said: "There! hold up your head, and look them in the face. It is true, they
are all against you; but, then, what of that, when I am on your side. It
is a great thing, let me tell you, to have me on your side. I am Miss
Merlin, my father's heiress; and he is the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court. And I am not sure but that I might make my papa have these two
bad boys hanged if I insisted upon it! And I stand by you because I know
you are telling the truth, and because my mamma always told me it would
be my duty, as the first lady in the country, to protect the poor and
the persecuted! So hold up your head, and look them in the face, and
answer them!" said the young lady, throwing up her own head and shaking
back her rich ringlets.