wrong? All Mr. Sprott’s children told them regular every day, and cross their hearts too. I s’pose Paul Irving never tells whoppers and here I’ve been trying awful hard to be as good as him, but now I s’pose you’ll never love me again. But I think you might have told me it was wrong. I’m awful sorry I’ve made you cry, Anne, and I’ll never tell a whopper again.”

Davy buried his face in Anne’s shoulder and cried stormily. Anne, in a sudden glad flash of understanding, held him tight and looked over his curly thatch at Marilla.

“He didn’t know it was wrong to tell falsehoods, Marilla. I think we must forgive him for that part of it this time if he will promise never to say what isn’t true again.”

“I never will, now that I know it’s bad,” asseverated Davy between sobs. “If you ever catch me telling a whopper again you can . . .” Davy groped mentally for a suitable penance . . . “you can skin me alive, Anne.”

“Don’t say ‘whopper,’ Davy . . . say ‘falsehood,’ ” said the schoolma’am.

“Why?” queried Davy, settling comfortably down and looking up with a tear-stained, investigating face. “Why ain’t whopper as good as falsehood? I want to know. It’s just as big a word.”

“It’s slang; and it’s wrong for little boys to use slang.”

“There’s an awful lot of things it’s wrong to do,”