And he promised.

But, alas! The promises of four years old are not absolutely reliable; and so that which happened once in a more ancient garden happened in the garden of the Manse.

Boy plucked and ate.

He came back to his mother with his white pinafore all marked and his red mouth redder still with condemnatory stains.

Yet, when asked "if he had touched the raspberries," he opened that wicked mouth and said, unblushingly, "No!" Of course it was an untruth--self-evident; in its very simplicity almost amusing; but the earl was not prepared for the effect it seemed to have upon Helen.