offended tone. "Horace will never learn it from me,
and there is no possible danger of his ever finding it out in any other
way, for I shall write to Rose at once, warning her not to send you any
more letters at present."

"I am not at all afraid to trust you, Aunt Adelaide, nor do I think there
is any danger of papa's finding it out," Elsie answered earnestly; "but I
should know it myself, and God would know it, too, and you know he has
commanded me to obey my father in everything that is not wrong; and I
_must_ obey him, no matter how hard it is."

"Well, you are a strange child," said Adelaide, as she returned the
letter to her pocket and rose to leave the room; "such a compound of
obedience and disobedience I don't pretend to understand."

Elsie was beginning to explain, but Adelaide stopped her, saying she had
no time to listen, and hastily quitted the room.

Elsie brushed away a tear and took up her book again--for she had been
engaged in preparing a lesson for the next day, when interrupted by this
unexpected visit from her aunt.

Adelaide went directly to her brother's door, and receiving an invitation
to enter in answer to her knock, was the next instant standing by his
side, with Miss Allison's letter in her hand.

"I've come, Horace," she said in a lively tone, "to seek from you a
reward of virtue in a certain little friend of mine; and because you
alone can bestow it, I come to you on her behalf, even at the expense
of having to confess a sin of my own."

"Well, take a seat, won't you?" he said good-humoredly, laying down his
book and handing her a chair, "and then speak out at once, and tell me
what you mean by all this nonsense."

"First for my own confession then," she answered laughingly, accepting
the offered seat. "I received a letter this morning from my friend, Rose
Allison, enclosing one to your little Elsie."

He began to listen with close attention, while a slight frown gathered on
his brow.

"Now, Horace," his sister went on, "though I approve in the main of your
management of that child--which, by the way, I presume, is not of the
least consequence to you--yet I must say I have thought it right hard you
should deprive her of Rose's letters. So I carried this one, and offered
it to her, assuring her that you should never know anything about it;
but what do you think?--the little goose actually refused to touch it
without papa's permission. She _must_ obey him, she said, no matter how