The poor girl raved incessantly about ribbons and Annie’s tearful face, and seemed to be in great distress of mind.  Annie heard that Charlotte was very ill, and came to see her.  She was shocked to hear her talk so wildly, and to see her face flushed with fever.  She stayed some time, but Charlotte did not know her, although she often mentioned her name.  When Annie returned home she asked her mother’s permission to stay with Charlotte as much as possible, which Mrs. Grey cheerfully gave, and went to visit her herself.

For a whole week poor Charlotte’s fever raged violently, and as Annie or her mother were with her constantly, they could not fail to discover from the sick girl’s ravings that she had taken the lost fivepence.  Annie, however, who heartily forgave her playmate, never mentioned what she heard to her mother, and Mrs. Grey also wisely refrained from telling her suspicions.  She was better acquainted with the treatment of the sick than Mrs. Murray, and she watched over Charlotte with the tenderness of a mother.  One day Annie sat reading her Bible by the bedside when Charlotte awoke from a long sleep, the first she had enjoyed, and looking towards Annie said in a feeble voice,

“Oh, dear Annie, is that you?”

The little girl rose, and bending over her sick playmate, begged her in a gentle voice to lie still and be quiet.

“I will, I will,” answered Charlotte, clasping her hands feebly about her friend’s neck as she leaned towards her, “if you will only say you forgive me.  Oh, you know not what a wicked girl I am, and yet it seems as if I had been telling everybody.”

“Never mind now, dear,” whispered Annie, “only keep still or you will bring on your fever again.”

“I believe I have been very ill, and have said many strange things,” murmured Charlotte, “but I know you now and understand what I say.  Do you think you can forgive me, Annie?”

“Yes, dear Charlotte, and I love you better than ever now, so do not talk any more.”  Annie kissed her tenderly as she spoke, and the sick girl laid her head upon the pillow still holding Annie’s hand in her own.

From this time Charlotte rapidly improved, and one afternoon, when her mother and Mrs. Grey and Annie were sitting with her, she told them the whole truth about the lost money, and begged them to forgive her.  Little Annie, whose tears were flowing fast, kissing her again and again, assured her of her entire forgiveness, and told her never to mention it again.

Mrs. Grey then said, “I think that we all forgive your fault, my dear child, but there is One whose forgiveness you must first seek before your repentance can be sincere.  The sin you have committed against God is far greater than any injury you have done us.  In the first place, my dear Charlotte, you wished to give with a wrong motive; you did not seek to please God and serve Him, by giving your trifle with a sincere heart and earnest prayers.  You sought rather