for what,
that she began to cry again.

So then both Sisters said again: "Yes, you should beg pardon."

But the little girl still cried, and said, "But I didn't mean to trip
her." Then she shook her head at Bessie Bell and said--because she
just had to say it:

"I beg your pardon!
Grant me grace!
I hope the cat will scratch your face!"

Oh! Sister Mary Felice looked at Sister Theckla, and Sister Theckla
looked at Sister Mary Felice--and they both said: "Where did she learn
that?"

But Bessie Bell knew that the little girl did not mean to throw her
down, so she said, "No, you didn't mean to do it."

She had thought she ought to say that, and she had been getting ready
to say that before the little girl had been made to beg her pardon, and
now that she had gotten ready she said: "No, you didn't mean to do it."

Then the little girl stopped crying, too, and ran and caught Bessie
Bell's hand again and said to her again:

"I beg your pardon!
Grant me grace!
I hope the cat won't scratch your face!"

So they went skipping down the walk together just as they had gone
before. Then Sister Mary Felice and Sister Theckla both said: "Well!
Well!"

* * *
* *
*

One time it came about that Bessie Bell lay a long time in her little
white crib-bed, and she did not know why, and she did not care much
why. She did not get up and play in the sand while Sister Mary Felice
looked one hour at the little girls playing in the sand.

She scarcely wondered why she did not leave the crib-bed to sit on the
long gallery-step in a row with all the other little girls, all with
their feet on the gravel, and all eating the tiny cakes that Sister
Ignatius made, while Sister Angela sat on the bench under the
magnolia-tree and looked at the row of little girls.

If sometimes just at waking from fitful sleep in her crib-bed there
came to her just a thought, or a remembrance, of a great big soft white
cat that reached its paw out and softly touched her cheek, it came to
her only like the touch of fancy in a big soft white dream.

Often Only-Just-Ladies came and talked over her little white crib with
Sister Helen Vincula.

Bessie Bell's little fingers were no longer pink and round now; they
lay just white, so white and small, on the white spread. And Bessie
Bell did not mind how quiet she was told to be, for she was too tired
to want to make any noise at all.

One day it happened that an Only-Just-Lady came an