Cannot you guess?'
'Not in the least,' said Helen.
'That Evans was clipping the hedges,' said Anne.
Elizabeth and Anne indulged in a good laugh at Helen, as much as at
Ambrose, and presently Elizabeth said, 'Well, but, Anne, where is
your crime?'
'Oh! I thought you had remembered, and would spare me,' said Anne.
'But we have not,' said Elizabeth; 'so now for it.'
'Then if I am to tell,' said Anne, 'do not you recollect that I began
to tell Rupert the story in the middle of dinner, when all the
servants were there?'
'O Anne, I never fancied you such a goose!' said Elizabeth.
'My delinquencies made very little impression on you, then,' said
Anne; 'I went on very fluently with the story till just as I had
pronounced the words, "two-legged blackbirds," I saw Uncle
Woodbourne's eye upon me, as he sat just opposite, with all its cold
heavy sternness of expression, and at the same moment I heard a
strange suppressed snort behind my chair.'
'Poor creature!' said Elizabeth; 'but you certainly deserved it.'
'I was ready to sink under the table,' said Anne; 'I did not dare to
look up to Papa or Mamma, and I have been very much obliged to Mamma
ever since for never alluding to that terrible dinner.
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