"Then you went to look for it and lost the bag. Lost your best pocket-handkerchief, too?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Old Mrs. Jennings stood looking at Ann Lizy.
"All that patchwork, cut out and basted jest as nice as could be, your best pocket-handkerchief and my bead bag lost, and your meetin' dress tore," said she; "well, you've done about enough for one day. Take off your things and go up-stairs to bed. You can't go over to Jane Baxter's again for one spell, and every mite of the patchwork that goes into the quilt you've got to cut by a thread, and baste yourself, and to-morrow you've got to hunt for that patchwork and that bag till you find 'em, if it takes you all day. Go right along."
Ann Lizy took off her hat and climbed meekly up-stairs and went to bed. She did not say her prayers; she lay there and wept. It was about half-past eight, the air coming through the open window was loud with frogs and katydids and whippoorwills, and the twilight was very deep, when Ann Lizy arose and crept down-stairs. She could barely see her way.
There was a candle lighted in the south room, and her grandmother sat there knitting. Ann Lizy, a piteous little figure in her white night-gown, stood in the door.
"Well, what is it?" her grandmother said, in a severe voice that had a kindly inflection in it.
"Grandma—"
"What is it?"
"I lost my patchwork on purpose. I didn't want—to sew it."