Anne shook her head, and little Anne cried triumphantly:
“It’s these is; Peter’s!”
“These is? These are, Anne. And what are Peter’s? That isn’t English.”
Anne looked puzzled.
“That’s just what it is; his English class; he said so,” little Anne insisted. “Peter-two said he’d bet I couldn’t make him mad, a child like me! That’s when I got kind of mad with Peter-two, and I said so’d he be, and he said I couldn’t make him mad, ’cause I wasn’t ’nough importance. And he had his these is—these are—but, Miss Anne, I know, at least I pretty near know, Peter said these is—and he had to have it in school this morning, and I got it, and hid it, and here ’tis, and he’s gone without it, and I guess he will be good’n mad, won’t he?”
In spite of herself Anne laughed, then she arose to her duty.
“Anne, that is poor Peter’s thesis!” she cried. “Let me see it. Of course it is that! And you have sent Peter to school without it! Don’t you know, dear, that Peter will be reprimanded for his carelessness, and receive bad marks besides? You should not play tricks on Peter that will get him into trouble at school.”
Instantly little Anne dropped from her height of triumphant glee into depths of contrite shame.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Miss Anne, is it bad? And I’m preparing and trying to be good! I mustn’t do one least, littlest sin. Is it a sin, Miss Anne? Do you think it could be a mortal sin, or just venial? But I’ve no business to commit even the weeniest venial sin when I’m preparing! Not the weest, littlest one! Is it a mortal sin, Miss Anne?”
“Goodness, what a child!” sighed Anne. “Dear little Anne, I suppose I don’t know as much as I should about it, but if mortal means what it usually does, this isn’t a mortal sin. It seems to me a fault, not a sin, you small Mediæval Survival! It isn’t kind to vex Peter, and you ought not to get him into a scrape.”