Now, are you
struggling to resist the little temptations that come to you day by day?
Are you striving to make the very best of yourself, Becky?"

I knew how easily I could move Rebecca, either to laughter or tears, so I
was not surprised to see her lip tremble, and her eyes fill; but I was
surprised at the look of intense anguish, almost of horror, that came
into her face. I had not supposed that she was capable of such strong
emotion, and I marvelled greatly, what could be the cause.

"Oh," she said; "you don't know, teacher, you don't know! It never seemed
so bad before I knew you. I was different brought up from you, and I
loved you, and when I knew, oh, then I could die, but I couldn't tell
you! Oh, you wouldn't kiss me again, ever, if you knew; and I wish you
wouldn't, for it hurts, it hurts worse than if you didn't!"

Rebecca had turned very pale, and drew her breath in long gasping sobs.

"Baby!" I said reassuringly, stroking her hair; "I don't believe you have
done anything very wrong." But Rebecca drew away from me.

"You don't know," she said. "I was brought up different--and it was
before you came, and I never knew that, what you told me about not
trusting people. I thought it was all true, and oh!--there ain't anybody
to help! Oh, I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!"

"Rebecca," I said, a little frightened, and convinced that the girl had
some serious trouble at heart. "Tell me what the trouble is? Has any one
deceived you? And why should any one wish to deceive you, child?"

Rebecca only moaned and shook her head.

"But you must tell me," I said; "I can't help you unless you do."

She drew herself farther away from me, with only these convulsive sobs
for a reply. I did not attempt to get nearer to her, to comfort her as it
had been my first impulse to do. She had repulsed me once. "You are
nervous and excited, my dear," I decided to say; "and something of little
consequence, probably, looks like a mountain of difficulty to you. At any
rate, when you get ready to confide in me, you must come to me. I shall
not question you again."

So I left her, less with a feeling of commiseration for her than with a
deep sense of my own pressing burdens and responsibilities.

I had another ex-pupil (Rebecca had been out of school for several
weeks), who was a source of considerable anxiety to me--Luther Larkin. He
had ceased coming to the Ark to sing with the others. He had not played
on his violin since th