I told Lily-Ann how sorry I was that the little red house was not filled to the chimney with pennies. I promised that I would give her all my money in the future to take home to her family, so that they might never be hungry again. Lily-Ann heard me in silence. She did not thank me with her lips, but when the Things grew too rampant at night she would reprove them sometimes in a stern manner.

"Go away!" she would cry, stamping her foot energetically. "Rhoda is a good child."

The Things and the Bear all grunted with the same voice as they retreated in discontent to their lairs; but I was not critical. It was enough for me that they went, if only for a time. Always I remembered that Lily-Ann could summon them at will, and her importance grew greater day by day.

There were hours, however, when I escaped into the safety of my mother's room. I was not too small to understand the delights of that cheerful room,—the glittering objects on the dressing-table, the deep bureau drawers filled with wonders much too dainty for a child to touch. There were keepsakes, also, mementos of my mother's childhood and youth; prize books in foreign tongues, won at school and laid away in tissue paper; bits of costly lace, and many little worthless, well-beloved possessions. In the closet there was a box on an upper shelf. Quite an ordinary box it was on the outside, made of pasteboard and tied with bands of yellow ribbon which had once been white. My mother lifted the cover one day, and showed me what was inside. It was the most wonderful thing, and it had come off her wedding-cake. There was a white platform surrounded with a wreath of white roses and leaves, and in the center of the platform there stood under a wreathed arch two little dolls, arm in arm.

"They are going to be married," my mother said. "They came off the top of my cake when I was married."

"Oh, isn't it too sweet for anything!" I cried, in an ecstasy. "But, mother, why does the lady doll wear a veil?"

"All brides do. You shall, too, some day."

"Shall I?" I questioned, doubtfully. "But, mother, dear, suppose I should grow up, and never get married, won't you give me these little dolls to play with?"

"If that should happen I suppose I must," my mother said, with a laugh, and tied the box up tightly again, and put it back on the upper shelf.

I dreamed about that box. I talked of it to Lily-Ann, and described the enchanting veil at great length; and I even condescended to tell the twins about the dolls that mother had. Once, with great pain from the acute rasping of my knees, I climbed up the closet shelves, and peeked in a loose corner of the box. Then I came down again, perfectly satisfied, for the dolls were still there, and if I escaped marriage they were to be my own. I determined that I would never marry. It would be at too great a cost.

Soon after this there came a day when everything seemed to go wrong. Lily-Ann was very cross, while my mother looked sad and even frightened. She went up and down stairs many times. She watched me furtively, and asked whispered questions of Lily-Ann. I wondered what Lily-Ann could possibly be telling her. I knew that it was not about me, for I had been very good that afternoon. To be sure, I had pulled the cat's tail; but she and I had kissed each other affectionately afterwards, and were friends again. Nor was Lily-Ann apt to reveal my misdeeds. She liked to judge me herself in that dread hour when the dark brought repentance. Still, as the questions went on and on, I was sure that I heard my name, not once but many times, now from Lily-Ann, and now from my mother, with a gasp of dismay.

Then my mother took me in her arms and kissed me, and rocked me as if I were a baby again, and in the middle of it all made me a little confidence.

"Rhoda, mother always meant to give you those little dolls," she said.

"Oh, did you, mother!" I cried, eagerly.

"But giving is different from taking. Do you know what it means to steal a thing, Rhoda?"

I nodded solemnly.

"'Thou shalt not steal,' you know the Bible says."

"Yes, mother."

"Did you climb up into my closet one day?"

I hung my head.

"Rhoda, when you knew that you had only to ask for mother to give them to you, why did you take away my little dolls?"

"But I did not take them," I cried, in surprise. "I only looked at them. Was I very bad, mother?"

"You didn't take them? Think what you are saying, Rhoda."

"I did not take them," I protested, breaking into tears, for though I was bad, I knew that I was not that bad.

I could see that she did not believe me. She sighed in a way that I had never heard my mother sigh before, and set me down on the floor beside her. Then she took me by the hand, and we made a very solemn pilgrimage up the stairs, and through her room into the one which was my own, straight up into the corner where my doll-house stood. She opened the little door, and motioned me to look in. The bride and groom were leaning stiffly side by side against the sofa in the parlor! They stared back at me with scorn on their sugar faces, and there was, also, something accusing in their expression, as if they were saying, "Little girl, how do we come here?" Still I would not confess. I had not taken them. I had wanted them very much, but now I did not want them at all. I should have liked to smash their sugar heads, for it was their fault. They had done it themselves, stepping down from their high shelf in the middle of the night. They were tired of living tied up in a box, and wanted my doll-house to set up housekeeping in. They had done it themselves just to plague me. There was no other way to explain it.

"What does she say?" grandmother asked, creeping in behind us.

"Not the truth!" my mother cried. "I should never have suspected my child of lying and stealing! But Lily-Ann says it is not the first time!"

I stood and looked at them. It almost seemed as if I did not love them any more. They knew me so little that they thought I could steal those sugar dolls.

"Grandma, put her to bed for me," my mother said, still with that frightened look on her face. "I don't know what to say to her. I must ask her father."

Grandmother put me to bed, with slow, patient fingers. She tucked me in, and kissed me in quite a tender way.

"Tell grandma," she urged, in a whisper, bending down until her spectacles touched my hot cheek.

But still I would not confess.

It was very quiet in my little room after she had gone. I could hear the dishes rattling down-stairs, as Norah set the table with a bang of the plates and a thump of the knives. We were going to have honey for supper and little cakes with frosted tops baked in scolloped patty-pans. I wondered whether I should have any supper, or must lie there in the dark, while they talked about me at the supper-table. I did not think that I could enjoy frosted cake baked in scolloped patty-pans if my little girl were alone up-stairs in the dark. When I grew up and married, for I might as well marry now, I would never treat any one so. Never! Never!! Never!!!

"Oh, please, God, let me hurry and grow up," I whispered to the darkness. "And, oh, please, God, let me have frosted cake for my supper!"

I waited for the prayer to bear fruit. Sometimes prayers were rather slow. I heard my father come home with a cheerful rustle of parcels. He hung up his coat and hat in the hall, and tiptoed upstairs to