crying heartily in sympathy.

On the upper veranda, whither she went to recover her composure, before
rejoining her mates, she found her mother pacing slowly to and fro.

"Is my Elsie in trouble, too?" Mrs. Travilla asked, pausing in her walk
and holding out her hand.

"For my Vi, mamma," sobbed Elsie, taking the hand and pressing it to her
lips.

"Yes, poor little pet! mother's heart aches for her too," Mrs. Travilla
answered, her own eyes filling. "I am glad my little daughters love and
sympathize with each other."

"Mamma, I would rather stay with Vi, than be with the others. May I?"

"No, daughter, I have told her she must spend the rest of the day
alone."

"Yes, mamma, she told me so and wouldn't let me stay even one minute to
hear about her trouble."

"That was right."

Time crept by very slowly to Violet. She thought that afternoon the
longest she had ever known. After a while she heard a familiar step, and
almost before she knew it papa had her in his arms.

With a little cry of joy she put hers around his neck and returned the
kiss he had just given her.

"Oh I'm so glad!" she said, "but, papa, you'll have to go away, because
nobody must stay with me; I'm--"

"Papa may," he said, sitting down with her on his knee. "So you told
mamma about the naughtiness?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am glad you did. Always tell mamma everything. If you have disobeyed
her never delay a moment to go and confess it."

"Yes, papa: but if it's you?"

"Then come to me in the same way. If you want to be a happy child have
no concealment from father or mother."

"Shall I tell you about it now, papa?"

"You may do as you like about that since your mother knows it all."

"Papa, I'm afraid you wouldn't love such a naughty girl any more."

"Mamma loves you quite as well, and so shall I; because you are our own,
own little daughter. There were tears in mamma's eyes when she told me
that she had had to punish our little Vi."

"Oh I'm so sorry to have made mamma cry," sobbed the child.

"Sin always brings sorrow and suffering sooner or later, my little girl;
remember that; and that it is because Jesus loves us that he would save
us from our sins."

After a little more talk, in which Violet repeated to him the same story
of her wrong doing that she had already told her mother, her papa left
her and she was again alone till mammy came with her supper--a bowl of
rich sweet milk and bread from the unbolted flour, that might ha