"Oh, I am, Pete," she quavered, though, in fact, she wasn't sure in
just what lay the shamefulness of her deed; till he'd spoken she had
felt nothing but Romance in the air.

"Well, you ought to be," Pete reiterated. He hesitated a second,
then went on:

"You aren't going to blab it all around, are you?"

"Oh, no!" breathed Missy, horrified at such a suggestion. "Well, see
that you don't! I'll give you some candy to-morrow."

"Yes--candy," came Polly's voice faintly from the divan.

Then, as the subject seemed to be exhausted, Missy crept away,
permeated with the sense of her sin.

It was horrible! To have sinned just when she'd found the wonderful
new feeling. Just when she'd resolved to be good always, that she
might dwell in the house of the Lord forever. She hadn't intended to
sin; but she must have been unusually iniquitous. Pete's face had
told her that. It was particularly horrible because sin had stolen
upon her so suddenly. Does sin always take you unawares, that way? A
new and black fear settled heavily over her.

When she finally returned to the porch with the paper-flowers box,
she was embarrassed by grandma's asking what had kept her so long.
It would have been easy to make up an excuse, but this new sense of
sin restrained her from lying. So she mumbled unintelligibly, till