ng my good
resolutions."

"I don't see how. First of all, it doesn't seem as if you did anything
that is wrong--a girl doesn't have much chance to."

"Oh yes, she does. You don't know. And I have so many faults. There are
my bureau drawers--I can't keep them neat, and my clothes would be all
in tatters if it were not for Edith and mamma. And, worst of all, there
is my tongue."

"Your tongue?"

"Yes. It is such fun to make fun of people and say sharp things when I
don't like them--the kind of thing I am always saying to that Bronson."

Neal laughed, and then he sighed.

"You are putting me into a bad corner. If you think your faults are so
tremendous, what must you think of mine? I'm a thief and a coward."

"Neal!"

"Yes, I am. I am a thief because I don't pay that money. I had no
business to borrow it in the first place, and I could save it out of my
allowance if I would take the trouble, but I am too lazy: and I am such
a coward I won't ask Hessie for it, because I am ashamed to have your
father know it. It's all a nasty business, anyway."

He looked moodily out on the snow, drumming his fingers on the
window-pane.

"Neal," said Cynthia, softly touching his arm with her hand as she
spoke, "let's turn over one more new leaf. I will look out for my tongue
and my bureau drawers, and you will tell mamma everything and start
fresh. Will you, Neal? Promise!"

Before he answered the clock began to strike.

"Happy New-Year! Happy New-Year!" was heard from the parlor. "Neal and
Cynthia, where are you? Come in here, that we may all be together when
the clock stops striking."

So the old year died, and Neal had not given the required promise.

One day, shortly before he returned to St. Asaph's, he said to his
sister,

"Hessie, if I had been of age I think I would have tried to break the
will of grandmother's."

"Oh, Neal dear, don't say that! What do you mean?"

"Well, it isn't that I mind your having the money; you have always been
a brick about keeping me supplied; but the trouble is, I need more than
you give me."

"Neal, I am afraid you are spending too much," said Mrs. Franklin,
looking at him anxiously. "Are you in debt again? You know I would love
to give you all I have, but your guardians and the trustees of the
estate and John all think that you have a very large allowance for a
school-boy, and it would not be a good plan to let you have any more."

"Bother them all!" exclaimed Neal, seizing the