“Here is your property,” said she, proudly, but she seemed almost as childish as her brother.

“I ain’t said any apology, either,” said Eddy.

“The coming here and returning it is apology enough,” said Anderson.

He looked foolishly at the ridiculous paper bag, sticky with lollipops.  For the first time he felt distinctly ashamed of his business.  It seemed to him, as he realized its concentration upon the petty details of existence, its strenuous dwelling upon the small, inane sweets and absurdities of daily life which ought to be scattered with a free hand, not made subjects of trade and barter, to be entirely below a gentleman.  He gave the paper bag an impatient toss out of the open window over the back of the sleeping cat, which started a little, then stretched himself luxuriously and slept again.

“There, he’s thrown it out of the window!” proclaimed Eddy.  He looked accusingly at Charlotte.  “I might just as well have kept it as had it thrown out of the window,” said he.  “What good is it to anybody now, I’d like to know?”

“Never mind what he has done with it,” said Charlotte.  “Come at once.”

“Papa told me I must apologize.  He will ask me if I did.”

“Apologize, then.  Be quick.”

“It is not—­” began Anderson, who was sober enough now, and becoming more and more annoyed, but Charlotte interrupted him.

“Eddy!” said she.

“I am very sorry I took your candy,” piped Eddy, in a loud, declamatory voice which was not the tone of humble repentance.  The boy, as he spoke, eyed the man with defiance.  It was as if he blamed him, for some occult reason, for having his own property stolen.  The child’s face became, under the forced humiliation of the apology, revolutionary, anarchistic, rebellious.  He might have been the representative, the walking delegate, of some small cult of rebels against the established order of regard for the property-rights of others.  The sinner, the covetous one of another’s sweets, became the accuser.  Just as he was going out of the door, following the pink flutter of his sister’s muslin gown, he turned and spoke his whole mind.

“You had a whole big glass jar of them, anyhow,” said he, “and I didn’t have a single one.  You might have given me some, and then I shouldn’t have stolen them.  It’s your own fault.  You ought not to have things that anybody else wants, when they haven’t got money to pay for them.  It’s a good deal wickeder than stealing.  It was your own fault.”

But Eddy had then to deal with his sister.  She towered over him, pinker than her pink muslin.  The ruffles seemed agitated all over her slender, girlish figure, like the plumage of an angry bird.  She caught her small brother by the shoulders, and shook him violently, until the dark hair which he wore rather long waved and his whole head wagged.

“Eddy Carroll,” she cried, “aren’t you ashamed of yourself?  Oh, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?  Begging, yes, begging for candy!  If you want candy, you will buy it.  You will not beg it nor take it without permission.  If you cannot buy it, you will go without, if you are a brother of mine.”