amusement.

But Sheila sprang to her feet and stepped back a pace or two. "Don't
you _see_?" she cried tragically.

And then Mrs. Caldwell discovered the transformation of her Cinderella.
No demure little maiden this, in the white muslin and blue ribbons of
an ingenuous spirit, but a fashionably clad "young lady," who appeared
to have grown suddenly tall and rather stately with the clothing of her
slim body in the long, soft gown.

"Sheila!" exclaimed Mrs. Caldwell involuntarily. And then, with her
hands outstretched to the impressive young culprit, "Tell me all about
it, dear."

And sitting on the floor at her grandmother's feet, regardless of
Charlotte's crushed flounces, Sheila poured out her impetuous
confession, from the first moment of temptation and yielding to the
final one of Peter's awakening words.

"And when he spoke of you, grandmother, I just couldn't _bear_ it! I
wondered how I could have been happy at all--I wondered how I could
have forgotten you for a minute! I hated the frock! I hated the
party! And I hated myself most of all! I had to come home and ask you
to forgive me right away!"

And down went her head into Mrs. Caldwell's lap. "Do you---think--you
can forgive me?" came the muffled plea.

For answer Mrs. Caldwell bent and kissed the prostrate head, and it
burrowed more comfortably against her knee. But Mrs. Caldwell did not
speak. She was waiting for something, and when Sheila continued to
burrow, in the contented silence of a penitence achieved, she inquired
quietly: "Well, dear?"

Sheila lifted her head at that, and looked straight into the wise,
sweet eyes above her: "I wanted something! I wanted something
dreadfully! And I didn't know what it was. And then, when I saw
myself in Charlotte's frock--and so changed--I thought I'd found what I
wanted. I thought--I thought I'd wanted to be beautiful!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Caldwell gently, "I used to think that, too."

"Oh, grandmother, did you? Then you understand how I felt! But--but,
you see, it didn't last. I wanted to be good _more_. That's what made
me come home. Grandmother, do you suppose _that's_ what I've wanted
all the time, without knowing it--to be good?"

At the question, Mrs. Caldwell, wise gardener that she was, realized
that one of the flowers which she had divined, stirring in the depths
of Sheila's being, was pushing its way upward to the light, and that
the moment had come for her to help it. She sl