Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/40

 "I did not," he said. And his shrill treble had a certain ring of defiance.

"Silence!" cried his mother.

In winter the little bedroom at the north end of the attic was a cold and dark room. And since when little boys had sinned no thought was taken for their health or comfort, it was to this room that Edward was exiled until such a time as he should see fit to confess his faults.

He had no toys and no books to keep him company. Nobody spoke to him, and he dared not speak to anybody. His meals were brought to him in silence, and in silence they were taken away. He was intolerably washed and roughly helped with his dressing and his undressing.

He stood his exile with an extraordinary stoicism. At times the loneliness and the strange sounds in the attic terrified him but he managed to keep silent. His heart, when it didn't simply ache, for he was only a baby, was sullen and resentful.

When you have been brought up to believe that speaking the truth is always rewarded, and find that it isn't, you begin to wonder what would happen if you lied once in a while. Dear Mother always spoke the truth. She said so. But it was Dear Mother who had pointed out to him that truth-telling was always rewarded, and here he was