"Yes, dear mother! they are very good," replied Andrew; "and you are
good, too. Indeed I love you, mother!"

The last sentence was uttered with visible emotion.

"Then, for my sake, try and do right, Andrew," said Mrs. Howland,
tenderly.

"I will try, mother," returned the boy. "I do try often; but I
forget myself a great many times."

Soon after Andrew started for school. On arriving, his teacher
called him up and said--

"Did your father get my note?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Andrew.

"What did he say to you?"

The boy's eyes sunk to the floor and he remained silent.

"I sent your father a note immediately," said the teacher, "telling
him that you were not to blame."

Andrew looked up quickly into his teacher's face, while a shadow
fell upon his countenance.

"You don't know whether he received it?"

"No sir."

The teacher called up another lad, and inquired if he had delivered
the note given him at the dwelling of Mr. Howland, as directed. The
boy replied that he had done so.

"Very, well. You can take your seat."

Then turning to Andrew, the teacher said--

"Was it about William Wilkins that your father sent for you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You told him how it was?"

The boy was silent.

"He didn't punish you, surely?"

Tears trembled on the closing lashes of the injured child; but he
answered nothing. The teacher saw how it was, and questioned him no
farther. From that time he was kinder toward his wayward and, too
often, offending scholar, and gained a better influence over him.

Not for a moment, during the afternoon, was the thought that his
father knew of his blamelessness absent from Andrew's mind. And,
when he returned home, his heart beat feverishly in anticipation of
the meeting between him and his parent. He felt sure that the
teacher's note had reached his father after the punishment had been
inflicted; and he expected, from an innate sense of right and
justice, that some acknowledgment, grateful to his injured feelings,
of the wrong he had suffered, would be made. There was no thought of
triumph or reaction against his father. He had been wrongly judged,
and cruelly punished; and all he asked for or desired was that his
father should speak kindly to him, and say that he had been blamed
without a cause. How many a dark shadow would such a gleam of
sunshine have dispelled from his heart. But no such gleam of light
awaited his meeting with his father, who did not even raise his