“Do you know where you found the paper, Anne? Then take it into the house, please, and lay it where it was, and come back to me. Hurry, little Anne! Oh, if Mr. Latham should come in before you did this!” “He can’t find it on the floor, can he?” little Anne demurred. “Then Stetson will. Don’t delay, dear; please be quick!” Anne fairly turned the child around by the shoulders and pushed her toward the house. Little Anne was speedy; she was back before Anne had time to worry over the likelihood of Richard’s coming, or Cricket to fall into utter despair at being abandoned by his small mistress. “I think I’d better go home now,” announced little Anne on her return. “I heard the Angelus down at our church quite a long time ago, so it’s ’most my lunch time. You look kind of pale, Miss Anne, dear. Was that bad for me to pick up that paper? I thought it was only neat when it was lying around like that. Was that a sin? Like troubling Peter-two? It’s very, very awful hard to walk sinlessly in this world, isn’t it?” “Oh, Anne, darling, of course it was only neat!” cried the girl, kissing little Anne heartily. “Well, you can’t do sins unless you know they are wrong and just go ahead and mean to, but I kind of forget that; only when I recite it, you know,” said the thin theologian. “I’ve got to tell Peter ’was me took his these is, and nobody can tell what he’ll say to me! Mother won’t let him _do_ anything, but she’ll talk to me, and that’s worse. It’s the most fearfullest of all when mother’s sorry! But I’ve got to be willing to bear it, if I didn’t do right, and I can offer it up. Good-bye, darling Miss Anne. I hope I didn’t make you sick with that paper; you look sicky.” “Not a bit, funny little Anne. Good-bye, and come soon again,” she said, cheerfully. Little Anne looked worried, she went slowly toward her acknowledgment of wrong-doing and her penance, but she forgot all about it as new thoughts took possession of her. She flew at her customary speed down the street, Cricket breathlessly running after her. To Anne’s inexpressible relief Richard Latham telephoned to her to say that he would lunch out, and that there would be nothing to keep her within doors that lovely afternoon. She gladly availed herself of this chance to get away from the familiar beauty of the garden and adjust her perturbed mind to her dismaying discovery. She went down through the garden and let herself out by the small gate at its rear that opened on a path which led to a pretty bit of woods of which she was fond. It must be set down in honesty that before she went out Anne went upstairs, picked up the paper which little Anne had faithfully laid exactly where she had found it, and made a copy for herself of the two stanzas which had so stirred her. Then she, like the smaller Anne, put the paper on the floor and went away.