ousins, said:

"There, you can stay. Aren't you glad?"

CHAPTER VI.

The First Slide of the Season.

After Uncle Morris and Mrs. Carlton had consented to permit the
self-willed cousins to remain a week longer at Glen Morris, the good old
man led Emily into the library and talked with her for over half an hour,
about the meanness and wickedness of lying. I cannot tell you exactly what
he said to her, because I don't know. That his words were weighty and
solemn, I have no doubt; for when Emily left the library her eyes were red
with weeping, and she went directly to her room and staid there alone
until the bell called her to tea.

Before Emily slept that night, she did what she had not done before during
her stay at Glen Morris. She kneeled at the bedside to say her prayers.
When she arose, Jessie threw an arm around her waist and kissed her. This
was done with so much tenderness, that Emily felt it to be a sign of her
cousin's sympathy with the new feelings and thoughts which were springing
up within her heart. Returning the kiss, she said:

"I'm sorry I told that lie about you to-day, Jessie."

"So am I," replied the simple-hearted girl; "it is always best to tell the
truth, and I hope you will never tell another story as long as you live."

"I won't, I'm resolved I won't; I told Uncle Morris so this afternoon, and
(here she lowered her voice to a whisper) I've been asking God to help me
keep my promise."

"That's the way! That's the way!" replied Jessie. "Uncle Morris says if we
mean to be good we must go to school to the Great Teacher who will both
teach us, and help us do the lesson."

With such words as these did Jessie encourage her cousin to enter that
beautiful path in which all the pure, noble, and good children in the
world are found.

The next day Emily was very quiet. She spent the morning helping Jessie
work on her famous quilt. Charlie was as rude and as ugly as ever; having
teased his sister for a long time in vain, to play out of doors with him,
the spoiled boy hissed at her, and said, "You are an ugly old cat!" Then
slamming the door after him, he went into the barn-yard, where the
screaming of the pigs, the gabble of the geese, and the clucking of the
hens, soon proclaimed that he was venting his ill-temper on the dumb
creatures who had their home there. Poor Charlie! the indulgence of his
mother, and the almost constant absence of his father from home, had made
him a very unhappy,