As usual, I went directly to Mrs. Brown to ask what she had for me to do. "What's the matter, Susan?" said she; "you don't look right; have you been naughty, or are you sick, child?" I could not bear to have her speak so kindly to me when I did not deserve it, and I burst into tears; I loved her like a mother, and I told her all. "And now, Susan, what are you going to do?" "I want you, ma'am, to tell the schoolmistress." "Better tell her yourself," she answered. After thinking a while, I said that I would; and then my conscience was a little easier. I went a little before the time, that I might see her alone. When I came in, I found a friend of hers with her, and I heard my mistress whisper, "This is my dear little orphan girl." She called me to her, and took me up in her lap. "Well, honest little Sue," said she, "why don't you look up in my face, as you know you always do?" This was too much for me; I burst into tears, and put my hands over my face. "What's the matter, Susan?" said she. As soon as I could speak, I said, "I did open the knife; I was wicked when you thought I was good, for I did not tell the truth; I opened and shut all the blades, and I cut a notch on my nail with one, and then I did not tell you of it when you asked who opened it." When I had got it all out, I felt better; it seemed as if a great load was taken off of my heart. In a few minutes, my kind friend said to me, "I am sorry you did wrong, Susan; but I am very glad to see that you have a tender conscience, and that it has made you come and confess your faults; I am very glad that you are so sorry; it is a bad sign when children think they are happy, after they have done wrong. I trust, my dear Susan, that you have suffered so much, that you will never commit such a fault again; it was only foolish and disobedient to take up my knife, but it was very wrong not to tell me, when I asked who did it, and let me punish so many girls for your offence." I saw that she thought I was the only one that had touched the knife, and believed me worse than I was; and then I felt what a difference there was between a good and an evil conscience; for it did not trouble me half so much that she thought me worse than I really was, as to see that she thought me better. Then she said, "You must, Susan, confess before the whole school that it was you that took my knife." While she was speaking, the girls came in. I had cried so much that I could hardly speak; and my good friend said that, as I was a little girl, she would speak for me. As soon as she said that I had confessed that it was I that took the knife, almost every girl in the school cried out, "It was not little Susan, it was I!" "It was not Sue, it was I!" was heard all round the room. This made me feel bold enough to speak, and I said, "Yes, I did take it up when you were all out on the play ground; I opened and shut all the blades, and cut a little notch on my nail."