to speak, that very day, if possible,
I will start for home"--and the thought that it was in her power to
recall him at any time; it was but to write a few words and send them
to him, and soon he would be with her--he would take her to his heart
again, and this terrible trial would be over.

The temptation was fearfully strong; the struggle often long and
terrible; and this fierce battle had to be fought again and again,
and once the victory had wellnigh been lost.

She had struggled long; again and again had she resolved that she would
not, could not, _dare_ not yield! but vainly she strove to put away the
sense of that weary, aching void in her heart--that longing, yearning
desire for her father's love.

"I cannot bear it! oh, I _cannot_ bear it!" she exclaimed, at length; and
seizing a pen, she wrote hastily, and with trembling fingers, while the
hot, blinding tears dropped thick and fast upon the paper--"Papa, come
back! oh, come to me, and I will be and do all you ask, all you require."

But the pen dropped from her fingers, and she bowed her face upon her
clasped hands with a cry of bitter anguish.

"How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" The words
darted through her mind like a flash of lightning, and then the words of
Jesus seemed to come to her ear in solemn tones: "He that loveth father
and mother more than me, is not worthy of me!"

"What have I done?" she cried. "Has it come to this, that I must choose
between my father and my Saviour? and _can_ I give up the love of Jesus?
oh, never, _never_!--

'Jesus, I my cross have taken
_All_ to leave and follow thee.'"

she repeated, half aloud, with clasped hands, and an upward glance of her
tearful eyes. Then, tearing into fragments what she had just written, she
fell on her knees and prayed earnestly for pardon, and for strength to
resist temptation, and to be "faithful unto death," that she might
"receive the crown of life."

When Elsie rapped at her aunt's dressing-room door the next morning, no
answer was returned, and after waiting a moment, she softly opened it,
and entered, expecting to find her aunt sleeping. But no, though extended
upon a couch, Adelaide was not sleeping, but lay with her face buried in
the pillows, sobbing violently.

Elsie's eyes filled with tears, and softly approaching the mourner, she
attempted to soothe her grief with words of gentle, loving sympathy.

"Oh! Elsie, you cannot feel for me; it is impossible