They had washed the baby's sticky little face, but they did not know what was to be done about the cloak, which lay over a chair.

Josephine essayed, with a dexterous gesture, to so fold the cloak over that the stain would be for the time concealed.

But Ida Edgham had not been a school-teacher for nothing.
She saw the gesture, and immediately took up the cloak herself.
"Why, what is this on her cloak ?" said she.
There was a miserable silence.
"It looks like molasses candy.

It is molasses candy," said Ida.
"Josephine, did you give this child molasses candy ?" Ida's voice was entirely even, but there was something terrible about it.
Maria saw Josephine turn white.

"She wouldn't have given her the candy if it hadn't been for me," said she.
Ida stood looking from one to the other.