The ballad went on to relate how presently Alice’s conscience bothered her. So she asked the Brown’s family confessor about it,
The priest by whom their little crimes were carefully assessed.
Here Louise appeared, in the brown bathrobe, with its hood pulled up over her head, and sandals on. Alice threw herself at his feet, and waved her hands in grief.
“Oh, father,” Gentle Alice said, “’Twould grieve you, would it not,
To find that I have been a most disreputable lot?”
Louise assumed a benign expression and listened while Alice confessed her sins. Marie stopped, while Winona herself spoke:
I assisted dear mamma in cutting up a little lad,
I helped papa to steal a little kiddy from its dad—
I planned a little burglary and forged a little check
And slew a little baby for the coral on its neck!
But Father Brown seemed inclined to be forgiving, and with a few remarks, ended,
We mustn’t be too hard upon these little girlish tricks—
Let’s see—five crimes at half a crown—exactly twelve and six.
Alice thanked him in a few grateful couplets, and pulled out another bandanna with money tied up in it from which she paid him. The ballad went on to relate how Alice tremblingly confessed her last sin, about the beautiful gentleman, who passed every day:
I blush to say, I’ve winked at him—and he has winked at me!