Straws! I stared at her aghast. Where were my straws? I didn't know. I hadn't the faintest idea. I had lost them both, as I lost everything else, except the empty head so firmly, yet so uselessly fixed upon my shoulders. It was really wonderful that a little girl who had only three places in the world in which to put anything--a desk, a washstand drawer, and a japanned dressing-case (our clothes were all kept for us with exquisite neatness in the vestry)--should not have known where her few possessions were; but I could have lost them all in any of these receptacles, and never have found one of them again. When a mad scramble through my desk had furnished incontestable proof that no straws were there, and Lilly had departed, somewhat comforted by my more desperate case, I sat gloomily facing the complicated problem before me. I must confess my sin, I would be called upon to make restitution, and I had nothing to restore. The more I thought about it, the more hopeless I grew, and the more confused became my sense of proportion. If I had stolen the Bambino himself,--as a peasant woman, it is said, once stole the Baby of Ara-Coeli,--I could not have felt guiltier. "Agnes," said Madame Rayburn's voice, "you had better go to the chapel now, and prepare for confession." She was looking down on me, and, as I rose to my feet, a light broke in upon my darkness. I knew where to turn for help. "If you've taken a thing, and you haven't got it any more to give it back, what can you do?" I asked. The suddenness with which my query was launched (I always hated roundabout approaches) startled even this seasoned nun. "If you've taken a thing," she echoed. "Do you mean stolen?" "Yes," I answered stolidly. She looked astonished for a moment, and then the shadow of a smile passed over her face. "Is it something you have eaten?" she asked, "and that is why you cannot give it back?" I laughed a little miserable laugh. It was natural that this solution of the problem should present itself to Madame Rayburn's mind, albeit we were not in the fruit season. But then, it had once happened that a collation had been set for the Archbishop and some accompanying priests in the conference room, and that Elizabeth, Lilly, and I, spying through a half-open door the tempting array of sandwiches and cake, had descended like Harpies upon the feast. This discreditable incident lingered, it was plain, in Madame Rayburn's memory, and prompted her question. "No, it wasn't anything to eat," I said; and then, recognizing the clemency of her mood (she was not always clement), I revealed the sacrilegious nature of my spoliation. "And I've lost them, and can't put them back," I wound up sorrowfully.