And after that I was put in my moth-
er's bedroom to pass the rest of the
day, and was told I needn't expect to
come to the table with the others.

I accepted my fate stoically, and be-
ing permitted to carry my own chair
into the room, I put it by the western
window, which looked across two miles
of meadows waving in buckwheat, in
clover and grass, and sat there in a cu-
rious torpor of spirit. I was glad to
be alone, for I had discovered a new
idea -- the idea of sin. I wished to be
left to myself till I could think out what
it meant. I believed I could do that by
night, and, after I had got to the root
of the matter, I could cast the whole
ugly thing out of my soul and be good
all the rest of my life.

There was a large upholstered chair
standing in front of me, and I put my
head down on the seat of that and
thought and thought. My thoughts
reached so far that I grew frightened,
and I was relieved when I felt the little
soft grey veils drawing about me which
I knew meant sleep. It seemed to me
that I really ought to weep -- that the