ble to send you back to school even yet."

Herbert could not help seeing that his mamma really meant what she said,
and this threat frightened him so much that he wept bitterly. "Mamma," he
said, "if you will only forgive me this once, I will try very hard not to
tease Carry all the time I am at home."

"Well, my boy," said Mrs. Ashcroft kindly, "we will give you one more
trial, and I hope you will not only try very hard, but ask God to help you
to be a good boy."

Herbert, before he went to his own room, opened his sister's door very
carefully to see if she were in bed. Carry did not hear him, she was so
intent looking out of the window at the rain. "I like to see the rain,"
she was saying to herself; "but I do hope it will pour itself out during
the night, for Herbert's sake; it is very hard for him, poor fellow."

[Illustration: WATCHING THE RAIN.]

Herbert pulled to the door very gently, and retired to his own room, with
the feeling stronger than ever that his sister was really "a good little
thing."

[Illustration: NEPTUNE.]

The next morning was as bright as a morning could well be, with everything
out-of-doors looking fresh after the rain, so that when breakfast was
over, Herbert and Caroline, with the large dog Neptune, lost not a moment
in setting out for a long ramble into the country. At first Herbert seemed
to remember his words of the previous evening, and was very kind to
Caroline, helping her carefully over the stepping-stones at the river,
instead of frightening her as he used to do. Then he always held open the
gates of the different fields they passed through, shutting them after
her, instead of making her do it. He even stopped throwing stones at a
wounded bird in a field when he saw it distressed her, though he laughed
at her for being such a simpleton as to care for a half-dead bird. This
recalled to his mind a circumstance that had happened at school, when he
and some of his schoolfellows had gone for a walk into the country one
half-holiday; and he began to relate how they had caught a pigeon sitting
on its nest up a tree, and how, regardless of its fluttering and piteous
cries, they had carried it off, and its nest also. Then he told with much
laughter how they had unearthed a mole, and how they had tied it to a
stick and made it a target to fling stones at, till it had died by inches;
no doubt, as Caroline supposed, having suffered great torture. Losing all
command of herself, she cried o