“Sure you can go!” she cried. “But I guess you’d better go to the church. They’re not just exactly hearing now, I s’pose, but there’s a bell and you ring it and one of ’em comes right out. If you get a chance to choose you’d better go to Father Denny; he’s mine. He’s kind of old, not very old, but his hair’s gray, but he’s as nice! I’ll take you, Miss Anne.” To little Anne’s inexpressible relief Anne laughed, a sorry sound of merriment, but a stride from passionate crying. “You dear, funny little enthusiast! I don’t go to confession, I’m not a Catholic, though ‛almost thou persuadest me’ to be one! I can see why confession would help. I’d like wise, dispassionate guidance now. Suppose you call Joan, since your mother is out? Ask Joan if she’s too busy to come here and let me talk to her?” Anne sat erect and dried her eyes. Little Anne ran rejoicing to the telephone; she knew the symptoms of recovery. She was back in a few moments, short of breath, but beaming. “Came near missing her! But it wouldn’t have mattered; she was coming with the baby. She’ll be here quick; going to stop at the grocer’s, she said, but that’s all,” little Anne announced. Little Anne found the interval of waiting for Joan a strain. It was hard to make conversation after such a scene, and with her active brain teeming with curiosity. She was quick to perceive that Anne preferred silence, so little Anne sat mute, hard though it was on her. Joan arrived full of sympathy; she knew no more than what little Anne had told her, that Anne was crying dreadfully. As Barbara’s mother she felt adequate to cope with any problem, console any grief, though for the latter office she would have nominated her baby as better able to fill it than herself. “Suppose we go up to Mother’s room, dear,” Joan proposed. “It’s the nicest room in the house; its walls are soaked with her wisdom and love for us. I think Barbara will walk soon; only fancy! We’ll take her with us; she’s darling when you feel blue! Anne, will you ask Peter to get the baby carriage up on the piazza, dear? Anne, Anne Dallas, what has happened? You look killed!” “Yes,” assented Anne, wearily. Then she remembered how good to her little Anne had been. “Don’t mind our leaving you awhile, will you, dear?” she said to the child. “I’ve got to tell Joan a secret that isn’t my own alone. You’ve been a dear little soul, such a comfort! I’d love to tell it to you if only you were as old as Joan.” “I don’t mind,” said little Anne without the slightest indication that she already knew as much about it as she could understand, and that was all the facts of the case, though not their consequences. “I think I’ll stay with Peter after I tell him about the carriage. He’s out in the backyard, working. He likes me there; he didn’t use to want me chattering, he said. I think Peter will prob’ly be a priest. He’s so good to me since I was sick that I’m ’most sure he’s got a vocation.”