The child was beaten brutally and sent to her room until she could
tell the truth. When she was released she still held that she had
not taken the cooky. Another beating followed, then a third, when
finally the stepmother interfered and said magnanimously:
"Don't whip her any more; she has been punished enough." And once
during one of the beatings she protested, saying, "Don't strike the
child _on the head_ in that way."
But the iron had entered into Lydia's sister's soul. The injustice
of it all drove gentle Elizabeth's gentleness to the winds.
"Liddy darling," she said, taking the thirteen-year-old girl-child
into her strong young arms, "_I_ know truth when I hear it.
_You_ never stole that cake."
"I didn't," sobbed the child, "I didn't."
"And you have been beaten three times for it!" And the sweet young
mouth hardened into lines that were far too severe for a girl of
seventeen. Then: "Liddy, do you know that Mr. Evans has asked me to
marry him?"
"Mr. Evans!" exclaimed the child. "Why, you can't marry _him_,
'Liza! He's ever so old, and he lives away up in Canada, among the
Indians."
"That's one of the reasons that I should like to marry him," said
Elizabeth, her young eyes starry with zeal.
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