a most important part of the preparation, almost as important as
catechism--how to enter the church, how to hold the candle, how to
advance, how to kneel, retire--everything, in fact.

Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. Pupasse
lost her sins!

Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But it
was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list!

The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, carrying her
lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such searching of
pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination of the floor!
Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, asseveration,
assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupasse accused
companion after companion of filching her sins, which each after
each would violently deny, producing each her own list from her own
pocket,--proof to conviction of innocence, and, we may say, of guilt
also.

Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list was the
longest and most complete. She could not go to confession without her
sins; she could not go to communion without confession. The tears
rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never could remember
to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame Joubert.

She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done theirs;
but how was she to know without the list if she had not forgotten
something? And to forget one thing in a general confession they knew
was a mortal sin.