Mary, is that your only trouble?
Stand where I can see you plainly, and tell me every word the truth.

Put your hair back from your eyes now, like the catechism." "If I were saying fifty catechisms, what more could I do than speak the truth ?" Mary asked this with some little vexation, while she stood up proudly before her mother, and clasped her hands behind her back.

"I have told you everything I know, except one little thing, which I am not sure about." "What little thing, if you please?
and how can you help being sure about it, positive as you are about everything ?" "Mother, I mean that I have not been sure whether I ought to tell you; and I meant to tell my father first, when there could be no mischief." "Mary, I can scarcely believe my ears.

To tell your father before your mother, and not even him until nothing could be done to stop it, which you call 'mischief!' I insist upon knowing at once what it is.

I have felt that you were hiding something.