A smothered sob caught Marian's ear. Lala was crying; and because Lala cried and was soon after found in Marian's room trying to quiet her, she was sent away the next day. Tilly was her successor. Before she had been in the house a week, she openly befriended Marian. "Poor little thing," she said, "if you had stolen a barrel of cookies from a baker you wouldn't have deserved half of the punishment you get. There isn't anything left they can do to you, is there?" "Yes, they can send me to the reform school," was the reply, "and, oh, dear, I'm afraid to go. What will become of me?" "If I were you," Tilly advised, "and I took the cookies, I would own up. They can't any more than kill you and I guess they'll do that anyway." Marian shook her head. The time to own up was long passed. She stayed in her room and ate bread and water a week without protest. On Sunday afternoon she listened to the story of Ananias and Sapphira with teeth and fists tightly closed. She heard long speeches on the fearful consequences of stealing and lying, without a word. Only when questioned would she say in low spiritless tones, "I did not touch the cookies." When it was all over, and Aunt Amelia and Uncle George gave up trying to wring a confession from her and the child was simply in disgrace, her own conscience began its work. It gave her no peace. Marian had said her prayers every night as Mrs. Moore had taught her when she was a baby; but she had repeated them quickly with her back turned towards heaven and had made no mention of cookies. At last, troubled by her conscience, and not knowing where to turn for comfort, Marian knelt by her bedside one night and tried an experiment. "O Lord," she began, "I am not going to lie to you about the cookies. Thou knowest I took them. That is why I haven't said any made up prayers for so long. I knew Thou knewest how wicked I am and I know what the Bible says about lying lips. I am afraid of Aunt Amelia or I would own up. She says I won't go to heaven when I die because I am too bad to live there. Now, O Lord, I know I could be good in heaven, but it has been hard work on earth, and after I took the cookies I got wickeder and wickeder, but honest and truth I'll never do anything wrong again and I'll never tell another lie. Thou knowest I could be good in heaven. Please, O Lord, forgive me and take me straight up to heaven when I die. Amen." That prayer didn't help Marian a bit. She could scarcely get off her knees when she had said "Amen." Her head seemed bowed down beneath a weight of cookies. "You know what you must do," insisted her conscience, "you must go to your Uncle George and your Aunt Amelia first, first, I say."