say a word.

Now Mr. Wood was a man who had a great deal of good sense, and when his
boy or girl had done what was wrong, it was his wish that the cure
should be wrought by their own sense of right and wrong. He thought
that the shame they felt from the sense of wrong would be the best cure
they could have. He did all he could to make them _feel_ in what they
had done wrong, and when he was sure they felt this he was sure they
would do so no more.

Now Mark was wrong to have let Rose have the six pence; and what made
it the more wrong was that he knew Mrs. Wood had once told Rose she did
not wish her to buy the box she had so great a wish to buy, for she
thought the glass at the top would soon break, and that Rose might be
cut by it. Mr. Wood did not say much to Mark, for he saw that he felt a
great deal. But he told Mark it was his wish that the pond scene should
be felt by Rose, and that it should be made the means to cure her of
her worst fault.

This fault was, that when Rose had a strong wish to have a thing she
thought she should like to have, she would not hear _no_.

The more _no_ was said, the more did she wish to have the thing to
which it was said. This had just been the case with the box. Mrs. Wood
had said no two, three, and four times, and each time that the _no_ was
said, the wish for _yes_ had been more strong.

The next day, when Rose came down stairs, she did not raise up her
eyes. Mr. Wood told her that as she had sold her self to Mark, he
should leave her to his charge for three days, and in that time she
must do all that Mark told her, and that she would have to do much she
would not like.

"Oh, Sir," said Rose, "buy me back! do buy me back!"

"Not yet," said Mr. Wood, "but if you do all that Mark bids you do for
three days, and if you do your best to try to put a check on the fault
which has been the cause of all this, why, then I _will_ buy you back."

The first day Rose did try as much as she could; but it was all she
could do not to cry when Mark told her to do things: "_You_ tell me,
Mark!--why should I do what you tell me?" and then she would think of
the _cause_ of that why, and she would hang down her head and blush.

The last of the three days was come, and on this day Rose felt light of
heart. Once she went to the place where the box had been put; she took
it up and said, "This box is mine--I shall not lose this." She took off
the lid, and just then she heard some one at the doo