is sisters, to go early
to bed.

While Lulu was making ready for hers, her thoughts turned upon the
morrow, bringing with them a new source of disquiet.

"Papa," she said pleadingly, when he came in to bid her good-night,
"mayn't I stay at home to-morrow?"

"Stay at home from church? Not unless you are sick, or the weather quite
too bad for you to go out. Why should you wish it?"

"Because--because--I--I'm afraid people have heard about--about how bad
I was the other day; and--so I--I can't bear to go where I'll--be seen
by strangers. No, I mean by folks out of the house that know who I am,
and what happened the other day."

"My child, I am sorry for you," he said, taking her on his knee; "but it
is a part of the punishment you have brought upon yourself, and will
have to bear."

"But let me stay at home to-morrow, won't you?"

"No: it is a duty to go to church, as well as a privilege to be allowed
to do so.

"'Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of
some is,' the Bible says; so I cannot allow you to absent yourself from
the services of the sanctuary when you are able to attend.

"As I have told you before, I must obey the directions I find in God's
Word, and, as far as lies in my power, see that my children obey them
too."

"I'd rather take a whipping than go to-morrow," she muttered, half under
her breath.

"I hope you are not going to be so naughty that you will have to do
both," he said very gravely. "You have been a very good girl to-day, and
I want you to end it as such."

"I mean to, papa; I'd be ashamed to be naughty after all you have done
for me, and given me to-day: and I mean to be pleasant about going to
church to-morrow; though it'll be ever so hard, and I'm sure you
wouldn't want to go if you were me."

"If you were I," he corrected. "No: if I were you, I suppose I should
feel just as you do; but the question is not what we want to do, but
what God bids us do.

"Jesus said, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' 'He that hath my
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.'

"It is the dearest wish of my heart to see my children his followers,
showing their love to him by an earnest endeavor to keep all his
commandments."

"Papa, you always want to do right, don't you?" she asked. "I mean, you
like it; and so it's never hard for you as it is for me?"

"No, daughter, it is sometimes very far from being easy and pleasant for
me to do what I fe