Anne's Confession

ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from
her room with a troubled face.

"Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas
by the spotless table and singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with
a vigor and expression that did credit to Diana's teaching, "did
you see anything of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in
my pincushion when I came home from church yesterday evening, but
I can't find it anywhere."

"I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid
Society," said Anne, a little slowly. "I was passing your door
when I saw it on the cushion, so I went in to look at it."

"Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly.

"Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and I pinned it on my
breast just to see how it would look."

"You had no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong
in a little girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room
in the first place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that
didn't belong to you in the second. Where did you put it?"

"Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute.
Truly, I didn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn't think about
its being wrong to go in and try on the brooch; but I see now
that it was and I'll never do it again. That's one good thing
about me. I never do the same naughty thing twice."