ith the empty tin pail in
her hand set out upon her homeward journey, a little excitement in her
heart as she thought of her contemplated excursion, a little sting in
her conscience as she reflected that she had not been quite honest
about any part of it.

Did you ever notice, when a little troubled and agitated, how quickly
you seemed to pass over the ground, and how speedily you arrived at the
point whither you had not fairly decided to go?

It was so with Roxie, and while she was still considering whether after
all she would go straight home, she was already at the entrance of the
sunny southern glade where lay the patch of bright red berries whose
faint, wholesome perfume told of their vicinity even before they could
be seen. Throwing herself upon her knees, the little girl pushed aside
the glossy dark-green leaves, and with a low cry of delight stooped
down and kissed the clusters of fragrant berries as they lay fresh and
bright before her.

"O you dear, darling little things!" cried she, "how I love to see you
again, and know that all the rest of the pretty things are coming right
along!"

Then she began to pluck, and put them sometimes in her mouth, sometimes
in her pail, and so long did she linger over her pleasant task that the
sun was already in the tops of the pine-trees, when, returning from a
little excursion into the woods to get a sprig from a "shad-bush,"
Roxie halted just within the border of the little glade, and stood for
a moment transfixed with horror. Beside the pail she had left brim-full
of berries, sat a bear-cub, scooping out the treasure with his paw, and
greedily devouring it, apparently quite delighted that some one had
saved him the trouble of gathering his favorite berries for himself.

One moment of dumb terror, and then a feeling of anger and reckless
courage filled the heart of the woodsman's child, and, darting forward,
she made a snatch at her pail, at the same time dealing the young
robber a sharp blow over the face and eyes with the branch of shad-bush
in her hand, and exclaiming:

"You great, horrid thing! Every single berry is gone now, for I wont
eat them after you. So now!"

But, so far from being penitent or frightened, the bear took this
interference, and especially the blow, in very bad part, and after a
moment of blinking astonishment, he sat up on his haunches, growled a
little, showed his teeth, and intimated very plainly that unless that
pail of berries was resto