he said, as she finished her chapter.
"Go and get the book you were reading to me yesterday. I wish to hear the
rest of it this morning."

Poor little Elsie! she rose to her feet, but stood irresolute. Her heart
beat fast, her color came and went by turns, and her eyes filled with
tears.

The book her father bade her read to him was simply a fictitious
moral tale, without a particle of religious truth in it, and, Elsie's
conscience told her, entirely unfit for Sabbath reading.

"Elsie!" exclaimed her father, in a tone of mingled reproof and surprise,
"did you hear me?"

"Yes, papa," she murmured, in a low tone.

"Then go at once and get the book, as I bid you; it lies yonder on the
dressing-table."

Elsie moved slowly across the room, her father looking after her somewhat
impatiently.

"Come, Elsie, make haste," he said, as she laid her hand upon the book.
"I think I never saw you move so slowly,"

Without replying she took it up and returned to the bedside. Then, as he
caught sight of her face, and saw that her cheeks were pale and wet with
tears, he exclaimed, "What, _crying_, Elsie! what ails you, my daughter?
Are you ill, darling?"

His tone was one of tender solicitude, and accompanied with a caress, as
he took her hand and drew her towards him.

"Oh, papa!" she sobbed, laying her head on the pillow beside him, "please
do not ask me to read that book to-day."

He did not reply for a moment, and when he did, Elsie was startled by the
change in his tone; it was so exceedingly stern and severe.

"Elsie," he said, "I do not _ask_ you to read that book, I _command_ you
to do it, and what is more, _I intend to be obeyed_. Sit down at once and
begin, and let me have no more of this perverseness."

"Dear papa," she answered in low, pleading, trembling tones, "I do not,
_indeed_, I do not want to be perverse and disobedient, but I cannot
break the Sabbath-day. _Please_, papa, let me finish it to-morrow."

"Elsie!" said he, in a tone a little less severe, but quite as
determined, "I see that you think that because you gained your point in
relation to that song that you will always be allowed to do as you like
in such matters; but you are mistaken; I am _determined_ to be obeyed
this time. I would not by any means bid you do anything I considered
wrong, but I can see no harm whatever in reading that book to-day;
and certainly I, who have lived so much longer, am far more capable
of judging in these matters t