After dismissal the children crowded around Annie, pitying and questioning her.  Charlotte moved away, she could not speak to her injured friend; but as she passed she heard Annie say, “I laid it on my Bible.  I was just about tying it in the corner of my pocket handkerchief when mother called me away; when I came back it was gone.  Kitty was sitting in the window, and I suppose must have knocked it down in the road.  I searched all over the room, and out in the road, but could not find it.”

“I am really sorry,” said one.

“And I, and I,” added three or four more.

“Let us go and help her look for it again,” said they all, “perhaps we may find it yet,” for Annie’s gentleness had made her beloved by all.

Charlotte’s feelings were far from enviable as she went towards home; she hated herself and felt perfectly miserable.  As soon as she arrived at the house she went hastily up stairs, and took off the hateful ribbon, as it now appeared, with a feeling of disgust, and throwing herself on the bed cried long and bitterly.  Charlotte did not know how to pray to God to give her a clean heart and forgive her sin; she never thought of asking His forgiveness, or confessing her fault; she felt sick at heart, restless and unhappy.  Such are ever the consequences of sin.  She ate no dinner, and her mother told her to go and lie down, as she did not look well.  Charlotte gladly went up stairs again, and after another hearty crying spell fell fast asleep.

When she awoke it was evening, and going down stairs she found that her mother had gone to visit a neighbor.  Charlotte stood out by the door, and although it was a lovely summer night, a gloom seemed to her to overhang everything.  Her little brothers spoke to her, and she answered them harshly and sent them away.  While she stood idly musing a miserable old beggar woman, who bore but an indifferent character in the neighborhood, came hobbling along; she came up to the little girl and asked an alms.  Almost instinctively she put her hand in her pocket, and taking thence the three cents placed them with a feeling of relief in the beggar’s hand.  She thought she was doing a good act, and would atone for her wicked conduct.  The old woman was profuse of thanks, and taking from her dirty apron a double handful of sour and unripe fruit, placed it in Charlotte’s lap and went away.

Charlotte’s parents had forbidden her eating unripe fruit; but a day begun in sin was not unlikely to end in disobedience.  She felt feverish and thirsty, and so biting one of the apples went on eating until all were gone.  She then went up to bed, and feeling afraid to be alone, for a bad conscience is always fearful, she closed her eyes and fell almost immediately asleep.

She was awakened in the night by sharp and violent pain; she dreaded to call her mother, as she would have to tell her what she had been eating, and so she bore the suffering as long as she could; but her restless tossings and moans aroused her mother, who slept in an adjoining room, and hastening in to her daughter, she found her in a high state of fever.  She did all she could for her, but the next morning Charlotte was so much worse that a physician was sent for.  She was quite delirious when he came, and he pronounced her situation dangerous.