ly up the blinds and moulding, over the
sill, and, as Nettie drew a frightened breath, in at the window.

"O, dear!" said Nettie; "now I'll have to be punished. It's silly of mamma
to be so easily frightened."

Her mamma, meanwhile, had just fallen into a doze. The rattling of the
chain startled her; she opened her eyes, and saw the ugly little black
monkey perched close beside her. She was quite startled, and very angry
with Nettie, of course: after securing the monkey safely in her cage, she
called Nettie to her, and speaking quite severely, told her to return to
the parlor, to sit down on the lounge, and neither to rise from it, nor
touch anything, until her father and Eric came home. Poor Nettie! It was
very dull indeed for her, and before long she was sobbing quite bitterly.

Meanwhile Allan finished his letter, and took up his cap, meaning to take
a walk around the square. Looking into the parlor, and seeing Nettie's
distress, he resolved to give up his walk and to comfort Nettie.

"I wouldn't cry, Nettie," he said, so softly and kindly that she stopped
crying, and looked up at him. "I will stay with you now. I've written my
letter."

Nettie's face lighted up instantly, but fell again as she exclaimed,--

"But it is not fair, Allan: you told Eric you should take a walk; mamma is
very unkind and unjust, too! I could not help Froll's going up that
time."

"O, Nettie," said Allan, "don't ever speak so of your mother, so kind and
good. My mamma is dead, Nettie; and if yours should ever be laid away in
the cold, cold ground, you would feel so dreadfully to think you had
wronged her!"

Nettie was crying again.

"I _do_ love mamma, and it was very bad of me to speak so; but, O, dear! I
never _do_ do anything right. I don't see why I can't be good, like
Adele."

"I know what makes Adele so good and gentle," said Allan. "She loves the
Lord, and tries to please him."

"But _I can't_!" said Nettie, piteously.

"O, yes, you can, Nettie. Every one can."

"Grown-up people can, I know."

"And children too," said Allan, earnestly. "Let me tell you a story auntie
used to tell me, when I was blind."

Nettie assented, and Allan repeated the story of "Little Cristelle,"
unconscious, the while, that he was fulfilling the teaching of song in
ministering to Nettie.

"Slowly forth from the village church,
The voice of the choristers hushed overhead,
Came little Cristelle. She paused in th