She raised the cover of the box and took out the dainty dress.  Still Lucy did not return.  A temptation came to Annie.  Why not keep the pretty red silk frock?  Lucy would not miss it at once; afterward she would think she had mislaid it.  She would never suspect the truth.  Annie breathed hard.  If she had quickly put the showy bit of trumpery back into the box and banished the covetous wish, all would have been well; but instead, she stood deliberating and turning the little dress over and over in her hands.  Meantime a hospitable thought had occurred to Lucy.  She remembered that there was a new supply of apples in the pantry, and had gone to get one for Annie and one for herself.  On her way through the dining-room she happened to look out of the window.

“Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed; for there was Mrs. Conwell getting out of the car at the corner!

At Lucy’s call of, “Annie, here comes your mother!” Annie started, hesitated, glanced at the box, and, alas! crammed the red silk frock into her pocket.  Then she caught up her cloak and hood, and rushed down the stairs.  Lucy ran to open the yard gate for her, and thrust the apple into her hand as she passed.

Flurried and short of breath, she reached home just as Mrs. Conwell rang the door-bell.  She did not hasten as usual to greet her mother; but, hurrying to her own little room, shut herself in, and sat down on the bed to recover from her confusion.

It happened that the cook claimed Mrs. Conwell’s attention in regard to some domestic matter, and thus she did not at once inquire for her little daughter, supposing that the child was contentedly occupied.  Annie, therefore, had some time in which to collect her thoughts.  As her excitement gradually died away, she found that, instead of feeling the satisfaction she expected in having spent the afternoon as she pleased and yet escaped discovery, she was restless and unhappy.  Upon her neat dressing-table lay the apple which Lucy had given her.  It was ripe and rosy, but she felt that a bite of it would choke her.  Above the head of the bed hung a picture of the Madonna with the Divine Child.  Obeying a sudden impulse, she jumped up and turned it inward to the wall.  Ah, Annie, what a coward a guilty conscience can make of the bravest among us!

Glancing cautiously around, as if the very walls had eyes and could reveal what they saw, she drew from her pocket the red silk frock.  She sat and gazed at it as if in a dream.  It was as pretty as ever, yet it no longer gave her pleasure.  She did not dare to try it on Clementina; she wanted to hide it away in some corner where no one would ever find it.  Tiny as it was, she felt that it could never be successfully concealed; Remorse would point it out wherever it was secreted.  Annie began to realize what she had done.  She had stolen!  She, proud Annie Conwell, who held her head so high, whom half the girls at school envied, had taken what did not belong to her!  How her cheeks burned!  She wondered if it had been found out yet.  What would Lucy say?  Would she tell all the girls, and would they avoid her, and whisper together when she was around, saying, “Look out for Annie Conwell!  She is not to be trusted.”