. You tore my dress."
"Yes, when you were blurting out that I sometimes slide down the
banisters."
"Oh!" said Miss Carpenter slowly, as if this reason had not occurred to
her before. "Was that why you pulled me?"
"Dear me! It has actually dawned upon you. You are a most awfully silly
girl, Jane. What did the Lady Abbess say?"
Miss Carpenter again gave her tears way, and could not reply.
"She is disgusted with us, and no wonder," said Miss Lindsay.
"She said it was all your fault," sobbed Miss Carpenter.
"Well, never mind, dear," said Agatha soothingly. "Put it in the
Recording Angel."
"I won't write a word in the Recording Angel unless you do so first,"
said Miss Lindsay angrily. "You are more in fault than we are."
"Certainly, my dear," replied Agatha. "A whole page, if you wish."
"I b-believe you LIKE writing in the Recording Angel," said Miss
Carpenter spitefully.
"Yes, Jane. It is the best fun the place affords."
"It may be fun to you," said Miss Lindsay sharply; "but it is not very
creditable to me, as Miss Wilson said just now, to take a prize in moral
science and then have to write down that I don't know how to behave
myself. Besides, I do not like to be told that I am ill-bred!"
Agatha laughed. "What a deep old thing she is! She knows all our
weaknesses, and stabs at us through them. Catch her telling me, or Jane
there, that we are ill-bred!"
"I don't understand you," said Miss Lindsay, haughtily.
"Of course not. That's because you don't know as much moral science as
I, though I never took a prize in it."
"You never took a prize in anything," said Miss Carpenter.
"And I hope I never shall," said Agatha. "I would as soon scramble for
hot pennies in the snow, like the street boys, as scramble to see who
can answer most questions. Dr. Watts is enough moral science for me. Now
for the Recording Angel."
She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in black
leather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY FAULTS. This she threw
irreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to one
only partly covered with manuscript confessions.
"For a wonder," she said, "here are two entries that are not mine. Sarah
Gerram! What has she been confessing?"
"Don't read it," said Miss Lindsay quickly. "You know that it is the
most dishonorable thing any of us can do."
"Poch! Our little sins are not worth making such a fuss about. I always
like to have my entries read:
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