h, no! Pa won't do that, I'm sure," said
Jessie, a little startled at the idea of dear old Rover's death.

"I'll kill him!" screamed Charlie, who was still a sulky prisoner in Guy's
hands.

"You are a little fellow to play the part of a butcher!" said Mr. Morris,
who had now come to the front of the house, and had been quietly surveying
the scene, for a few moments past, from behind a large evergreen,
unperceived by all but Guy.

"I'm glad you are come, Uncle," said Guy, "for I did not know what to do
with this little lump of spunk. I guess that Jessie is glad, too, for she
seems puzzled to know what to do with Emily, who is as sulky as Charlie
here is spunky."

The presence of Uncle Morris quieted Charlie, and made Emily rise from the
grass. But nothing that he could say, after hearing the whole story, could
restore them to good humor. Charlie bit his thumb, and scowled; while
Emily, pushing Jessie from her side, kept rolling her pocket-handkerchief
into a ball, pouted, and refused to say a word, either to her uncle or
cousin.

In this wretched mood they went in to tea, sitting at the table like two
dark shadows falling across a room full of sunshine. Everybody was kind to
them. Jessie did her utmost to restore them to good humor. Uncle Morris
said funny things, hoping to make them smile. But it was no use. Smile
they would not; and when tea was over, they both slunk away to a distant
part of the room, and kept up their sulks until bedtime. Even then, when
Jessie tried to kiss Emily, she was rudely pushed aside.

"I don't want to kiss anybody in this house," muttered the ugly child; and
poor Jessie, shrinking from her, went to her uncle, laid her head upon his
shoulder, and wept.

"The shoe has begun to find holes in the stocking," said Uncle Morris,
passing his hand over Jessie's head, with great tenderness; "but never
mind, my little puss--cheer up. Your cousins will leave their bad tempers
in the land of dreams, I hope, and their good-nature will return with the
sun to-morrow morning. Dry your eyes, my sweet Jessie, and be thankful to
the Father above, that your cousins cannot rob you of your own sunny
temper."

Jessie did dry her eyes, and looking into her uncle's face, said, with a
nod of her pretty head, "Now I know why you sighed; and I know, too, what
your proverb meant."

"What did I sigh for, puss?"

"Because you knew my cousins had ugly tempers."

"That's so! But the proverb?"

"Meant that wh