FIVE CHILDREN AND IT
treason-crime, and I shouldn't wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to split"—
"Shut up, can't you?" said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he felt in his heart that if there should be Indians they would be entirely his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.
"It's simply idiotic," he said, "talking about Indian's, when you can see for yourself that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look what a fine day it is——OH!—"
He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the day—the others turned too—and a frozen silence caught at Cyril, and none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there, peering round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the Virginia creeper, was a face—a brown face, with a long nose and a tight mouth and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in coloured
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