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Ann Lizy looked like a wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains and downward curves. She stood there in the road as if she had not courage to stir.

“Now, Ann Lizy,” said Mrs. Baxter, “you’d better run right home and not worry. I don’t believe your grandma ‘ll scold you when you tell her just how ‘t was.”

Ann Lizy shook her head. “Yes, she will.”

“Well, she’ll be worrying about you if you ain’t home before long, and I guess you’d better go,” said Mrs. Baxter.

Ann Lizy said not another word; she began to move dejectedly towards home. Jane and her mother called many kindly words after her, but she did not heed them. She kept straight on, walking slowly until she was home. Her grandmother stood in the doorway watching for her. She had a blue-yarn stocking in her hands, and she was knitting fast as she watched.

“Ann Lizy, where have you been, late as this?” she called out, as Ann Lizy came up the walk. “It’s arter six o’clock.”

Ann Lizy continued to drag herself slowly forward, but she made no reply.

“Why don’t you speak?”

Ann Lizy crooked her arm around her face and began to cry. Her grandmother reached down, took her by the shoulder, and led her into the house. “What on airth is the matter, child?” said she; “have you fell down?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What does ail you, then? Ann Lizy Jennings, how come that great three-cornered tear in your best dress?”

Ann Lizy sobbed.

“Answer me.”

“I–tore it gittin’ over–the wall.”

“What were you gettin’ over walls for in your best dress? I’d like to know what you s’pose you’ll have to wear to meetin’ now. Didn’t I tell you not to get over walls in your best dress? Ann Lizy Jennings, where is my bead bag?”

“I–lost it.”

“Lost my bead bag?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How did you lose it, eh?”

“I lost it when–I was lookin’ for–my patchwork.”

“Did you lose your patchwork?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“When?”

“When I was–goin’ over to–Jane’s.”

“Lost it out of the bag?”

Ann Lizy nodded, sobbing.

“Then you went to look for it and lost the bag. Lost your best pocket-handkerchief, too?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Old Mrs. Jennings stood looking at Ann Lizy.

“All that patchwork, cut out and basted jest as nice as could be, your best pocket-handkerchief and my bead bag lost, and your meetin’ dress tore,” said she; “well, you’ve done about enough for one day. Take off your things and go up-stairs to bed. You can’t go over to Jane Baxter’s again for one spell, and every mite of the patchwork that goes into the quilt you’ve got to cut by a thread, and baste yourself, and to-morrow you’ve got to hunt for that patchwork and that bag till you find ’em, if it takes you all day. Go right along.”

Ann Lizy took off her hat and climbed meekly up-stairs and went to bed. She did not say her prayers; she lay there and wept. It was about half-past eight, the air coming through the open window was loud with frogs and katydids and whippoorwills, and the twilight was very deep, when Ann Lizy arose and crept down-stairs. She could barely see her way.

There was a candle lighted in the south room, and her grandmother sat there knitting. Ann Lizy, a piteous little figure in her white night-gown, stood in the door.

“Well, what is it?” her grandmother said, in a severe voice that had a kindly inflection in it.

“Grandma–“

“What is it?”

“I lost my patchwork on purpose. I didn’t want–to sew it.”

“Lost your patchwork on purpose!”

“Yes–ma’am,” sobbed Ann Lizy.

“Let it drop out of the bag on purpose?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, you did a dreadful wicked thing then. Go right back to bed.”

Ann Lizy went back to bed and to sleep. Remorse no longer gnawed keenly enough at her clear, childish conscience to keep her awake, now her sin was confessed. She said her prayers and went to sleep. Although the next morning the reckoning came, the very worst punishment was over for her. Her grandmother held the judicious use of the rod to be a part of her duty towards her beloved little orphan granddaughter, so she switched Ann Lizy with a little rod of birch, and sent her forth full of salutary tinglings to search for the bead bag and the patchwork. All the next week Ann Lizy searched the fields and road for the missing articles, when she was not cutting calico patchwork by a thread and sewing over and over. It seemed to her that life was made up of those two occupations, but at the end of a week the search, so far as the bead bag was concerned, came to an end.