to you."

Margaret winced. "Well, if it is any satisfaction to you, I am
realising nothing but misery from it," she said in a low voice.

"I don't see how you can help that," replied Annie simply. Then she
went away.

It proved Margaret's unflinching trust in the girl and Annie's
recognition of no possibility except that trust, that no request nor
promise as to secrecy had been made. Annie, after she got home,
almost forgot the whole for a time, since her Aunt Harriet, and Aunt
Harriet was the sister who was subject to rose-colds, announced her
determination to call at Mr. von Rosen's the next afternoon with
Annie and see his famous collection.

"Of course," said she, "the invitation was meant particularly for me,
since I am one of his parishioners, and I think it will be improving
to you, Annie, to view antiquities."

"Yes, Aunt Harriet," said Annie. She was wondering if she would be
allowed to wear her pale blue muslin and the turquoise necklace which
was a relic of her grandmother's girlhood. Aunt Susan sniffed
delicately.

"I will stay with Mother," she said with a virtuous air.

The old lady, stately in her black satin, with white diamonds
gleaming on her veinous hands, glanced acutely at them. The next day,
when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was
not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios, she declared
that it was simply filthy, and that Annie must wear her blue, and
that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too
dressy for the occasion.

It therefore happened that Annie and her Aunt Harriet set forth at
three o'clock in the afternoon, Annie in blue, and her aunt in thin
black grenadine with a glitter of jet and a little black bonnet with
a straight tuft of green rising from a little wobble of jet, and a
black-fringed parasol tilted well over her eyes. Annie's charming
little face was framed in a background of white parasol. Margaret saw
them pass as she sat on her verandah. She had received more
congratulatory letters that day, and the thief envied the one from
whom she had taken. Annie bowed to Margaret, and her Aunt Harriet
said something about the heat, in a high shrill voice.

"She is a wonderful woman, to have written that successful novel,"
said Aunt Harriet, "and I am going to write her a congratulatory
note, now you have bought that stationery at Tiffany's. I feel that
such a subject demands special paper. She is a wonderful woman and