eath, she reached home just as Mrs. Conwell
rang the door-bell. She did not hasten as usual to greet her mother;
but, hurrying to her own little room, shut herself in, and sat down on
the bed to recover from her confusion.

It happened that the cook claimed Mrs. Conwell's attention in regard to
some domestic matter, and thus she did not at once inquire for her
little daughter, supposing that the child was contentedly occupied.
Annie, therefore, had some time in which to collect her thoughts. As
her excitement gradually died away, she found that, instead of feeling
the satisfaction she expected in having spent the afternoon as she
pleased and yet escaped discovery, she was restless and unhappy. Upon
her neat dressing-table lay the apple which Lucy had given her. It was
ripe and rosy, but she felt that a bite of it would choke her. Above
the head of the bed hung a picture of the Madonna with the Divine
Child. Obeying a sudden impulse, she jumped up and turned it inward to
the wall. Ah, Annie, what a coward a guilty conscience can make of the
bravest among us!

Glancing cautiously around, as if the very walls had eyes and could
reveal what they saw, she drew from her pocket the red silk frock. She
sat and gazed at it as if in a dream. It was as pretty as ever, yet it
no longer gave her pleasure. She did not dare to try it on Clementina;
she wanted to hide it away in some corner where no one would ever find
it. Tiny as it was, she felt that it could never be successfully
concealed; Remorse would point it out wherever it was secreted. Annie
began to realize what she had done. She had stolen! She, proud Annie
Conwell, who held her head so high, whom half the girls at school
envied, had taken what did not belong to her! How her cheeks burned!
She wondered if it had been found out yet. What would Lucy say? Would
she tell all the girls, and would they avoid her, and whisper together
when she was around, saying, "Look out for Annie Conwell! She is not
to be trusted."

She covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears. And all the
while a low voice kept whispering in her heart with relentless
persistency, till human respect gave way to higher motives. She
glanced up at the picture, turned it around again with a feeling of
compunction, and, humbled and contrite, sank on her knees in a little
heap upon the floor.

A few moments afterward her mother's step sounded in the hall. When
one finds a little