t heavenly to go to her to-night,
instead of spending hungry hours awake in my horrid bedroom."

CHAPTER X.

DISCIPLINE.

The other girls were miserable; but Miss Tredgold had already exercised
such a very strong influence over them that they did not dare to disobey
her orders. Much as they longed to do so, none of them ventured near poor
Pauline. In the course of the afternoon Miss Tredgold called Verena
aside.

"I know well, my dear, what you are thinking," she said. "You believe
that I am terribly hard on your sister."

Verena's eyes sought the ground.

"Yes, I quite know what you think," repeated Miss Tredgold. "But, Verena,
you are wrong. At least, if I am hard, it is for her good."

"But can it do any one good to be downright cruel to her?" said Verena.

"I am not cruel, but I have given her a more severe punishment than she
has ever received before in her life. We all, the best of us, need
discipline. The first time we experience it when it comes from the hand
of God we murmur and struggle and rebel. But there comes a time when we
neither murmur nor struggle nor rebel. When that time arrives the
discipline has done its perfect work, and God removes it. My dear Verena,
I am a woman old enough to be your mother. You must trust me, and believe
that I am treating Pauline in the manner I am to-day out of the
experience of life that God has given me. We are so made, my dear, that
we none of us are any good until our wills are broken to the will of our
Divine Master."

"But this is not God's will, is it?" said Verena. "It is your will."

"Consider for a moment, my child. It is, I believe, both God's will and
mine. Don't you want Pauline to be a cultivated woman? Don't you want her
character to be balanced? Don't you want her to be educated? There is a
great deal that is good in her. She has plenty of natural talent. Her
character, too, is strong and sturdy. But at present she is like a flower
run to weed. In such a case what would the gardener do?"

"I suppose he would prune the flower."

"If it was a hopeless weed he would cast it out of his garden; but if it
really was a flower that had degenerated into a weed, he would take it up
and put it to some pain, and plant it again in fresh soil. The poor
little plant might say it was badly treated when it was taken from its
surroundings and its old life. This is very much the case with Pauline.
Now, I do not wish her to associate with Nancy King. I do n