ay!" she
wailed.

"Maybe she won't scold," said Jane, consolingly.

"Yes, she will. Oh dear!"

The two little girls went dolefully home to tea. There were hot biscuits
and honey and tarts and short gingerbread and custards, but Ann Lizy did
not feel hungry. Mrs. Baxter tried to comfort her; she really saw not
much to mourn over, except the rent in the best dress, as four squares
of patchwork could easily be replaced; she did not see the true
inwardness of the case.

At half-past five, Ann Lizy, miserable and tear-stained, the
three-cornered rent in her best dress pinned up, started for home, and
then--her grandmother's beautiful bead bag was not to be found. Ann Lizy
and Jane both remembered that it had been carried when they set out to
find the patchwork. Ann Lizy had meditated bringing the patchwork home
in it.

"Aunt Cynthy made that bag for grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a tone of
dull despair; this was beyond tears.

"Well, Jane shall go with you, and help find it," said Mrs. Baxter, "and
I'll leave the tea-dishes and go too. Don't feel so bad, Ann Lizy, I
know I can find it."

But Mrs. Baxter and Jane and Ann Lizy, all searching, could not find the
bead bag. "My best handkerchief was in it," said Ann Lizy. It seemed to
her as if all her best things were gone. She and Mrs. Baxter and Jane
made a doleful little group in the road. The frogs were peeping, and the
cows were coming home. Mrs. Baxter asked the boy who drove the cows if
he had seen a green bead bag, or four squares of patchwork; he stared
and shook his head.

Ann Lizy looked like a wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat
drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the
three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress
that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains
and downward curves. She stood there in the road as if she had not
courage to stir.

"Now, Ann Lizy," said Mrs. Baxter, "you'd better run right home and not
worry. I don't believe your grandma 'll scold you when you tell her just
how 't was."

Ann Lizy shook her head. "Yes, she will."

"Well, she'll be worrying about you if you ain't home before long, and I
guess you'd better go," said Mrs. Baxter.

Ann Lizy said not another word; she began to move dejectedly towards
home. Jane and her mother called many kindly words after her, but she
did not heed them. She kept straight on, walking slowly until she was
home. Her grand