bed the harder, and
Harry, turning to the table, pointed to the little packet, thus
explaining the mystery!

'And so for a selfish gratification you have endangered a
fellow-creature's life,' said Mr Maurice, sternly.

'Oh, father!' exclaimed Harry, 'she's so sorry! Don't cry, Effie, don't
cry!' he whispered, at the same time passing his arm around her neck,
'father didn't mean to be so severe, he is only frightened about little
James--I am very sorry I didn't go, for it was too bad to make you leave
the book.'

But all Harry's soothing words could not make Effie blind to her own
neglect, and when she saw her father go out with an anxious, troubled
face, and her mother looked so sorrowful without saying a single word to
her, she could not help going back in her thoughts to Mrs Town, Rosa
Lynmore, and even the miser, and thinking she was worse than any of
them.

Her brother Harry still clung around her neck, and kept whispering she
was not to blame, the fault was his, till Mrs Maurice called him away,
and then very reluctantly he quitted her side. Poor Effie, thus left
without sympathy, crept away to her own little room, and sat down, not
merely to weep, but to enter into a regular self-examination. The truths
she thus discovered were exceedingly humiliating, but the child began to
feel that she needed humbling, and she did not shrink from the task. I
do not know but Effie's self-condemnation was greater than the fault
really called for, but it certainly was of great use to her, and made
her humbler, and gentler, and more forgiving than she ever was before.

Effie did not see her father or Harry again that night, but when her
mother came to see if she was warm in her little bed, she whispered in
her ear, 'Oh, I have so many faults: and my heart is full of false gods.
I am afraid I never really loved my Heavenly Father.'

'Yet, Effie, a great many children, and some grown people, would
consider this neglect of yours to-day a very small thing.'

'Oh, mother! I know it is not small, though I never thought it was so
very wicked before.'

'And what makes you think it is wicked now?'

'Because it has led me to do so many wicked things. In the first place,
it was wrong to read immediately after breakfast, for then is the time
that you desire me to work.'

'Well, do you see any bad effect that the neglect of this rule may have
on your future life?'

'I suppose I should make a very useless woman, if I should grow up