I had to rush right through it before she started talking and my courage again left me. So I told her how for a long while I'd been taking her clothes and how I just had to tell her. She didn't understand and wanted to know why I was selling them. I told her that I was wearing them and that I didn't know what was wrong with me but try as I would I couldn't stop. I couldn't tell anyone else and would she please help me stop the habit.

All she said was not to worry about it anymore. Just run along and come back to see her that night after she'd had time to think about it.

It

I didn't need a second invitation to get out of there. was over and an awful relief, but I had all kinds of fears all day long. What if she told my folks or anyone else? Most anyth- ing could happen--and it did in my mind that day. I just wouldn't go back again and I did drag as it was time to go. But I was afraid she'd come for me and then it would come out. As far as I could tell she hadn't told anyone. If I waited much longer I'd have to go to bed.

She put me right at ease. During the day she'd made a list of the missing things and she went over it and asked me if I had them. It was surprising how long a list it was when everything was written down.

Then she took me up to her bedroom. She had things layed out on the bed and told me to undress and put them on. I told her that I didn't want to wear them and that I wanted to stop. She said that I didn't understand what was wrong, that I couldn't help it if I was a sissy and that I couldn't fool myself that she'd never heard of boys wanting to wear girl's clothes. Some of her things had been missing for more than two years and if I'd been trying not to wear them as I said, I should have proved to myself by now that I wasn't going to change. I couldn't go on stealing things and having others take the blame only to destroy them. Didn't I have any idea what all those things cost? It was best for me to realize that I wanted to wear girl's clothes and I could come over and dress in her clothes any time I wanted to and I could pay for the things I'd already stolen by helping her with the housework for which she'd allow me fifty cents a week. That doesn't seem like much these days, but it was more than I had ever seen then.

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