. He would never have dared to say these things
to my face! Now let me tell you. I know I have been much to blame; you
made me feel it. You are taming me; and if he leaves me to you I may
be more dutiful when he comes back. But if he strains his new notion of
authority too far, and if you throw me off, I shall be driven to do what
will grieve and disappoint you.'

'But surely,' said Violet, 'it cannot be the right beginning of being
dutiful to resist the first thing that is asked of you.'

'You wish me to go to be fretted and angered! to be without one
employment to drown painful thoughts, galled by attempts at controlling
me; my mind poisoned by my aunt, chilled by my mother--to be given up to
my worse nature, without perhaps even a church to go to!'

'It is very hard,' said Violet; 'but if we are to submit, it cannot be
only when we see fit. Would it not be better to make a beginning that
costs you something?'

'And lose my hope of peaceful guidance!'

'I do believe,' said Violet, 'that if you go patiently, because it is
your duty, that you will be putting yourself under the true guidance;
but for you to extort permission to stay with me, when your father
disapproves, would be only following your own way. I should be afraid. I
will not undertake it, for it would not be right, and mischief would be
sure to ensue.'

'Then you give me up?'

'Give you up! dear, dear sister;' and Violet rose and threw her arms
round Theodora. 'No, indeed! When I am so glad that I may love you as
I always wished! I shall think of you, and write to you, and pray for
you,' whispered she. 'All I can I will do for you, but you must not say
any more of staying with me now. I can help you better in my right place
than out of it.'

Theodora returned the caress and quitted the room, leaving Violet to her
regrets and fears. It was a great sacrifice of herself, and still worse,
of her poor little pale boy, and she dreaded that it might be the ruin
of the beneficial influence which, to her amazement, she found ascribed
to her, in the most unexpected quarter. It had gone to her heart to
refuse Theodora's kindness, and all that was left for her was to try to
still her fluttering, agitated spirits by the consciousness that she had
striven to do right, and by the prayer that all might work for good.

Indeed, it was very remarkable how, in this critical period of
Theodora's life, when repentance was engaged in so severe a conflict
with her long-