rty it was to go to had
been all run together, so's you can't read it. The package got wet, I
guess. But your name's plain enough up in the corner. I knowed I ought
ta brung it here first thing, but I--I--opened it. I knowed I hadn't
oughtta. Then I seen this pretty silk sack and I wanted it terrible.

"I says to myself as how I was goin' to keep it. It wasn't my fault if
you throwed it into the rubbish can by mistake. My husband he said I
hadda right to it, 'cause findin' was keepin'. So I kep' it, but it made
me feel bad. I was brung up honest and I knowed it was the same as
stealin'.

"But I wanted it terrible, jus' the same. I never see anything
han'somer, an' it looked swell on me. I put it on jus' once for a
minute. It didn't give me no pleasure, though. I felt jus' sneaky an'
mean. After that I put it away. Once in a while I took a look at it.
Then my little girl got a bad cold. She was awful sick. I forgot all
about the sack. She pretty near died. I sat up with her nights for quite
a while. When she got better I thought about the sack again, and knowed
that God had come down hard on me for bein' a thief. So I jus' got ready
an' brung it back. It ain't hurt a mite, an' I hope you won't make me no
trouble, 'cause I've had enough."

Mrs. Weatherbee's feelings can be better imagined than described. The
return of the missing sweater at the critical moment was sufficiently
astounding, not to mention the pathetic little confession that
accompanied its return. She felt nothing save intense sympathy for her
humble caller.

When the latter took her leave a few moments later, she went away wiping
her eyes. Far from making her any "trouble," Mrs. Weatherbee had treated
her with the utmost gentleness. The stately, white-haired woman with the
"proud face" had not only thanked her for returning the "sack," she had
asked for her humble caller's address and expressed her intention of
sending the little sick girl a cheer-up present.

Left alone, Mrs. Weatherbee sat smiling rather absently at the dainty
blue and white bit of knitting which she had taken from its wrapper. She
thought she understood very well how it had happened to stray into the
rubbish can. She now recalled that the rubbish cans about Chesterford
and at the edge of the campus were much the shape and size of the
package boxes used by the postal service. Given a dark, rainy night and
an absent-minded messenger, the result was now easy to anticipate. Here
was p