o which we will add the
berries and cream after we get there--and we will take books to read,
and the ladies will have their work, and the little girls their dolls,
and we will spend the day in the woods. Will not that be quite as
pleasant as going with the school-children?"

The little arm had been stealing round his neck again while he was
telling her all this, and now hugging him tighter and tighter, she
whispered: "Dear papa, you are very kind to me, and it makes me feel
so ashamed of my naughtiness. I always find in the end that your way is
best, and then I think I will never want my own way again, but the very
next time it is just the same thing over. Oh, papa, you will not get out
of patience with me, and quit loving me, and doing what is best for me,
because I am foolish enough to wish for what is not?"

"No, darling, never. I shall always do what seems to me to be for your
good, even in spite of yourself. I who have so often been guilty of
murmuring against the will of my heavenly Father, who, I well know,
is infinite in wisdom and goodness, ought to be very patient with your
distrust of a fallible, short-sighted earthly parent. But come, darling,
we will go up-stairs; we have just time for a few moments together before
you go to bed."

On going to their bedroom after leaving her father, Elsie found Sophie
already there, impatiently waiting to tell her of the plan for the
morrow, which she had just learned from Richard.

She was a little disappointed to find that it was no news to Elsie, but
soon got over that, and was full of lively talk about the pleasure they
would have.

"It will be so much pleasanter," she said, "than going berrying with
those school-children, for I dare say we would have found it hot and
tiresome walking all that distance in the sun; so I'm right glad now that
your father said no, instead of yes. Aren't you, Elsie?"

"Yes," Elsie said with a sigh.

Sophy was down on the floor, pulling off her shoes and stockings. "Why,
what's the matter?" she asked, stopping with her shoe in her hand to look
up into Elsie's face, which struck her as unusually grave.

"Nothing, only I'm so ashamed of crying when papa said I shouldn't go,"
Elsie answered, with a blush. "Dear papa! I always find he knows best,
and yet I'm so often naughty about giving up."

"Never mind, it wasn't much. I wouldn't care about it," said Sophy,
tossing away her shoe, and proceeding to pull off the stocking.

Chloe wh