Her wickedness of the past week had frightened her. "I felt I didn't care what I did, I was so wild with Mona. I wonder I didn't do more harm than I did. And then Patty, poor little Patty. I nearly drowned her! Oh-h-h!" She buried her face and shuddered at the remembrance. "I knew she'd fall into the water if I pushed her, so it was as bad as being a murderer. If she had died--and she nearly did--I should have been one, and I should have been in jail now, and--oh, I _will_ try to be good, I _will_ try to be better!" Long shadows were falling across the road as she went down the hill, on her homeward way. The flowers in Lucy Carne's garden were giving out their evening scent. Lucy, standing enjoying them, looked up as Millie came along, and nodded. "Wouldn't you like a flower to wear?" she asked. Millie paused. "I'd love one," she said, looking in over the low stone wall. "I never smell any so sweet as yours, Mrs. Carne." Lucy gathered her a spray of pink roses, and some white jessamine. "There," she said, "fasten those in your blouse. Isn't the scent beautiful? I don't think one could do anything bad, or think anything bad, with flowers like those under one's eyes and nose, do you?" "Don't you?" questioned Millie, doubtfully. "I don't believe anything would keep me good." Lucy looked at her in faint surprise. It was not like Millie to speak with so much feeling. "You don't expect me to believe that," she began, half laughing; then stopped, for there were still traces of tears about Millie's eyes, and a tremulousness about her lips, and Lucy knew that she was really in need of help. "I know that you've got more courage than most of us, Millie," she added gently. "If you would only use it in the right way. Perhaps my little flowers will remind you to." "I hope they will. I wish they would," said Millie, fastening them in her coat. "Goodbye." Before she reached her own home Millie saw her father out at the door looking for her. As a rule, it made her angry to be watched for in this way, "Setting all the neighbours talking," as she put it. But to-day her conscience really pricked her, and she was prepared to be amiable. Her father, though, was not prepared to be amiable. He had got a headache, and he wanted his tea. He had been wanting it for an hour and more. "Where have you been gallivanting all this time, I'd like to know. I'll be bound you've been a may-gaming somewhere as you didn't ought to on a Sunday, your dooty to me forgotten." To Millie this sounded unjust and cruel. She had let her duties slip from her for a while, but she had been neither may-gaming nor wasting her time. Indeed, she had been in closer touch with better things and nobler aims than ever in her life before, and in her new mood her father's words jarred and hurt her. An angry retort rose to her lips.