Mrs. Howard had told Gracie that she might either go to school early in the morning and make her apology to Miss Ashton before the other scholars came, or she might write to her this evening, and send the note to her teacher.
Gracie had chosen to do the last; but when the younger children had gone to bed, and she tried to write the note, she found she could not bring her mind to it. Her conscience was so troubled, and her thoughts so full of her guilty secret, that the words she needed would not come to her; and as her mother saw her sitting with her elbows upon the table, biting the end of her pencil or scrawling idly over her blotter and seeming to make no progress at all, she believed, and with reason, that Gracie was not truly repentant for what she had done, and had only promised to beg Miss Ashton's pardon in order that she might be released from the imprisonment of which she had tired. Gracie was not usually at a loss for ideas or words where she had any thing to write.
"I can't do it," she said pettishly at last, pushing paper and pencil from her. "I s'pose I'll have to go to Miss Ashton in the morning, and I b'lieve I'll go to bed now. Good-night, mamma."
And Gracie went to her room, wishing to escape from her own thoughts, and bring this miserable day to a close as soon as possible.
But the next morning it was no better; and now it seemed harder to go to Miss Ashton and speak than it would be to write. But it was too late now: she had no time to compose a note, "make it up" as she would have said, and to copy it before school, and she must abide by her choice of the previous night.
She started early for school, according to her mother's desire, with many charges from her to remember how grievously she had offended Miss Ashton, and to put away pride and self-conceit and make her apology in a proper spirit.
Had there not been that guilty secret fretting at Gracie's heart, she might have been induced to be more submissive; but, as it was, she felt so unhappy that it only increased her reluctance to make amends to Miss Ashton and acknowledge how wrong she had been.
She asked for her teacher at once when she reached the house, anxious to "have it over;" and, when the young lady appeared, blurted out, "I beg your pardon, Miss Ashton."
Miss Ashton sat down, and, taking Gracie's half-reluctant hand, drew her kindly towards her.
"It is freely granted, my dear," she said. "And are you truly sorry, Gracie?"