ed to obey.
Mrs. Gray then took the child in her lap, and spread a large cloth under
her chin, at the same time telling Sally to bring a cup of blackberry
jelly from the store closet. "Now, my little Nelly," she said, "you must
take this to make you well. If you will open your mouth and swallow it
all down like a good girl, I will give you some nice jelly to take the
taste out, for it is very bad. But if you don't take it before I count
three, I shall hold you and force it down your throat."
Then she began to count,--"one, two,"--but before she could say three,
Nelly caught the spoon and swallowed the medicine, and then took some
jelly so quickly, that she hardly tasted the oil.
"That was a right good girl," said her uncle. "I couldn't have taken it
any better myself."
When Nelly was well, her aunt kindly talked with her of the great sin
which she had committed. "You have done just as naughty Moses did," she
said. "First, you stole the raisins, as he stole the orange; and then
you told a wicked lie to hide it from me, as he did to hide his sin from
his mother." Then she told Nelly, "God hears all we say, and sees all we
do. We can hide nothing from him; and he says in his holy book, 'liars
shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone.'"
Nelly cried; and promised over and over again to be a good girl, and she
really tried to improve. She saw how happy her cousins were, and how
every body loved them, and she said to herself, "I mean to try to be
just as good as I can."
CHAPTER VI.
THE LOST ORANGE FOUND.
WHEN little girls or boys try to do right, every body loves to help
them. Mrs. Gray knew that for six years her little niece had been
indulged in every wish, and that she had never been taught to restrain
her ill humor. She could not, therefore, expect her to be cured at once
of all her bad habits; but she was much pleased to see that Nelly grew
every day more amiable, more ready to give up her own wishes, and to try
to make others happy. Sometimes, in playing with Frankie, she would
forget, and say an unkind word; but the moment she saw the eye of her
aunt fixed mournfully upon her, she would say, "I'm sorry, Frankie."
When she said this, the dear child always put up his little red lips to
kiss her, and say, "I sorry, too, Nelly." Sometimes he would add, "God
is sorry, too."
It was very rainy one morning, and the children were obliged to keep in
doors. Frankie h
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