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“You talk very silly, Annie,” said Grandmother Stockton. “I hope you don’t want to have the child to grow up a wicked, deceitful man.”

Willy’s grandparents gave up going to the silver wedding. Grandpa had no good coat to wear, and indeed neither of them had any heart to go.

So the morning of the wedding-day they started sadly to return to Ashbury. Willy’s face looked thin and tear-stained. Somebody had packed his little bag for him, but he forgot his little cane.

When he was seated in the cars beside his grandmother, he began to cry. She looked at him a moment, then she put her arm around him, and drew his head down on her black cashmere shoulder.

“Tell Grandma, can’t you,” she whispered, “what you did with Grandpa’s coat?”

“I didn’t–do–any”–

“Hush,” said she, “don’t you say that again, Willy!” But she kept her arm around him.

Willy’s mother came running to the door to meet them when they arrived. She had heard nothing of the trouble. She had only had a hurried message that they were coming to-day.

She threw her arms around Willy, then she held him back and looked at him. “Why, what is the matter with my precious boy!” she cried.

“O, mamma, mamma, I didn’t, I didn’t do anything with it!” he sobbed, and clung to her so frantically that she was alarmed.

“What does he mean, mother?” she asked.

Her mother motioned her to be quiet. “Oh! it isn’t anything,” said she. “You’d better give him his supper, and get him to bed; he’s all tired out. I’ll tell you by and by,” she motioned with her lips.

So Willy’s mother soothed him all she could. “Of course you didn’t, dear,” said she. “Mamma knows you didn’t. Don’t you worry any more about it.”

It was early, but she got some supper for him, and put him to bed, and sat beside him until he went to sleep. She told him over and over that she knew he “didn’t,” in reply to his piteous assertions, and all the time she had not the least idea what it was all about.

After he had fallen asleep she went downstairs, and Grandma Stockton told her. Willy’s father had come, and he also heard the story.

“There’s some mistake about it,” said he. “I’ll make Willy tell me about it, to-morrow. Nothing is going to make me believe that he is persisting in a deliberate lie in this way.”

Willy’s mother was crying herself, now. “He never–told me a lie in his whole dear little life,” she sobbed, “and I don’t believe he has now. Nothing will ever–make me believe so.”

“Don’t cry, Ellen,” said her husband. “There’s something about this that we don’t understand.”

It was all talked over and over that night, but they were no nearer understanding the case.

“I’ll see what I can do with Willy in the morning,” his father said again, when the discussion was ended for the night.

Willy was not awake at the breakfast hour next morning, so the family sat down without him. They were not half through the meal when there were some quick steps on the path outside; the door was jerked open, and there was aunt Annie and uncle Frank.

She had Willy’s little yellow cane in her hand, and she looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“It’s found!” she cried out, “it’s found! Oh! where is he? He left his cane, poor little boy!”

Then she really sank into a chair and began to cry. There were exclamations and questions and finally they arrived at the solution of the mystery.

Poor little Willy had not done anything with Grandpa’s coat. Mrs. Perry had not given it to him. She had–given it to another boy.

“Last night about seven o’clock,” said uncle Frank. “Mr. Gilbert Hammond brought it into the store. It seems he sent his boy, who is just about Willy’s age, and really looks some like him, for a bundle he expected to come by express. The boy was to have some shoes in it.