e dared not ask her mother to stay with her.

When Mrs. Lamb had gone out, Kate covered her face wholly under the
bedclothes, and shut her eyes as close as she could, trying in this
manner to go to sleep. But her guilty conscience gave her no rest.

Then she opened her eyes, and looked around the room; but every thing in
the chamber seemed to mock and reproach her. Again and again she shut
her eyes, and tried to sleep.

The little voice within would speak now, in the silence of her chamber.
She had never felt so bad before; perhaps because she had never been so
wicked before. Do you want to know why she suffered so much? It was
because she could not keep from her mind those hungry, crying children.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: KATE TELLS THE WHOLE STORY.]

IV.

Poor Kate! She had certainly never been so wicked in her life before.
The words of her father still lingered in her ears, and she could almost
hear the moans of those hungry, crying children.

She had never been sent to bed in her life without her supper, and it
looked like a dreadful thing to her--perhaps even more dreadful than it
really was.

If there had been nothing but the falsehoods she had told, she might
have gone to sleep; but it was sad to think that she had deprived the
poor children of their supper, and sent them hungry to bed. This seemed
to be the most wicked part of her conduct.

I do not know how many times she turned over in the bed, nor how many
times she pulled the clothes over her eyes to shut out the sad picture
of those hungry and crying children that would come up before her, in
spite of all she could do to prevent it.

She tried to think of other things--of the scene with Fanny; of her
school; of a picnic party she had attended on the first of May; of
almost every thing, indeed; but it did no good. The poor children could
not be banished from her mind.

Kate had been sick with the measels, with the scarlet fever, and the
mumps; and she remembered how bad she felt at these times; but it seemed
to her now that she would rather have all these diseases at once than
suffer from a guilty conscience.

When she was sick, her mother bent over her and pitied her, and did all
she could to ease her pain; and even when she was burning with fever,
and racked with pain, she felt happier than she did now.

She could not inform her mother how bad she felt, for that would expose
her guilt. She heard the clock strike nine, and ev