would be very sorry
to hear that our coming brought any trouble to you.'

'It is not a trouble, of course,' again broke in the impetuous Mabel,
without waiting her mamma's reply; 'and we shall be home long before
papa, so nothing need be said to him about our having been out.'

The two young visitors looked at each other, and appeared quite
distressed at this suggestion. They had been, and rightly so, taught to
consider deception of any kind as falsehood; but Mrs. Ellis did not
appear to be of the same opinion, and though she still urged her own ill
health and the absence of the nurse, she was evidently inclined to yield
to the continued and earnest request of her daughters.

'We will promise you not to be away more than an hour, dear mamma,' said
Julia, who was certainly the best of the two girls; and this promise
being seconded by Mabel very earnestly, poor Mrs. Ellis foolishly gave
her consent to their going, which consent had no sooner been obtained,
than the selfish girls darted off to make ready for their walk, leaving
Dora and Annie very much concerned about what had passed, and determined
in their own minds to forego the anticipated pleasure of seeing the
glass beehives till a more convenient season, for fear they should not
be back at the appointed time.

Mrs. Ellis, as I think I have before stated, had long been very
delicate; she was of a nervous temperament, and nothing appeared to
affect her health so much as excitement of any kind. She had been
ordered lately to be kept perfectly quiet, but this is one of those
rules that are more easily made than complied with by the mistress of a
house, and the mother of a family; and, unfortunately for Mrs. Ellis,
she had no strength of mind to aid her in the discharge of the duties
that devolved upon her, for she was weakly indulgent both to her
children, and her servants, and thus she was too often the slave of the
one, and the dupe of the other.

After the young people had set off for their walk, she sat down to
consider whether she had done right in letting them go; and remembering
her husband's prohibition, and the uncertainty of the time at which he
would return home, she evidently came to an unfavourable conclusion in
the matter, as she exclaimed aloud; 'I wish I had not let them go!'

Wishing, however, now, was of no avail, and as sundry screams from the
nursery betokened a misfortune of some kind, the bell was rung for the
cook to go, and ascertain the ca