ll trot up to you as if nothing had
happened and expect to be lavishly petted.

I never saw anyone except the Elf look interesting when naughty. She
does look interesting. She is a rather light brown, and any emotion
makes the brown lighter; her long lashes droop over her eyes in the most
pathetic manner, and when she looks up appealingly she might be an
innocent martyr about to die for her faith.

We have two other small girls with us; the Imp--but her name is a libel,
she reformed some months ago--and Tangles, who ties herself into knots
whenever she makes a remark. These three have many an argument (for
Indian children delight in discussion), and sometimes the things that
are brought to me would shock the orthodox. This is the last, brought
yesterday:

"Obedience is not so important as love. Orpah was very obedient. Her
mother-in-law said, 'Go, return,' and she did as she was told. But Ruth
was not obedient at all. Four times her mother-in-law said, 'Go,' and
yet she would not go. But God blessed Ruth much more than Orpah, because
she loved her mother-in-law. So obedience is not so important as love."
Only the day before I had been labouring to explain the absolute
necessity for the cultivation of the grace of obedience; but now it was
proved a secondary matter, for Ruth was certainly disobedient, but good
and greatly blessed.

The Elf's chief delinquencies at present, however, spring from a rooted
aversion to her share in the family housework (ten minutes' rubbing up
of brass water-vessels); an appetite for slate pencils--she would nibble
them by the inch if we would let her--"they are so nice to eat," she
says; and, most fruitful of all in sad consequences, a love of being
first.

As regards sin No. 1, I hope it will soon be a thing of the past, for
she has just made a valuable discovery: "Satan doesn't come very close
to me if I sing all the time I'm rubbing the brasses. He runs away when
he hears me sing, so I sing very loud, and that keeps him away. Satan
doesn't like hymns." And I quite agree, and strongly advise her to
persevere.

Sin No. 2 is likely to pass, as she hates the nasty medicine we give her
to correct her depraved proclivities; but No. 3 is more serious. It
opens the door, or, as she once expressed it, it "calls so many other
sins to come,"--quarrelling, pride, and several varieties of temper,
come at the "call" of this sin No. 3.

She is a born leader in her very small way, and she has no