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 girl's cloak flung on the baluster, stumbles over a
hood on the stairs, and picks up an odd mitten somewhere else, the
evidences are strong that the owner has come home in a hurry. Mrs.
Conwell had, therefore, discovered Annie's disobedience. She threw
open the door, intending to rebuke her severely; but the sight of the
child's flushed and tear-stained face checked the chiding words upon
her lips.
"What is the matter, Annie?" she inquired, somewhat sternly.
"O mother, please don't scold me! I'm unhappy enough already,"
faltered Annie, beginning to cry again.
Then, as the burden of her miserable little secret had become
unendurable, she told the whole story. Mrs. Conwell looked pained and
grave, but her manner was very gentle as she said:
"Of course, the first thing for you to do is to return what you have
unjustly taken.
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