on the broken glass which was spread over the
carpet. Just then, old Rover, finding the parlor door ajar, pushed it
open, and walked up to his young mistress, wagging his tail, and rubbing
her hand with his nose, which was his way of saying, "I hope you are glad
to see me, this afternoon."

Jessie patted his head, and sat down wearing a very grave face. Rover
thought something was amiss, but not knowing how to inquire into the
matter, after a few more rubs of his nose upon his little lady's hand,
laid down, and looked wistfully into her eyes.

Rover's presence put a new idea into the evil mind of Emily. She turned it
over silently a few moments, and then said:

"Jessie! I have just thought of a capital way of getting out of this
scrape about the mirror."

"Have you?" replied her cousin. "I don't see how you can do that, unless
you can get some fairy to mend it for us, and I guess there are no good
fairies, to do such things for unlucky girls and boys, now-a-days."

"_Fairies_ indeed!" retorted Emily with a sneer. "I don't believe in
_fairies_. My plan is to tell your mother, that while Rover was playing
with us, he bounced against the mirror, and broke it to smash."

"O Emily! I would not tell such a wicked story to save my life!" rejoined
Jessie.

"Well, I would; I've got out of many a bad scrape, by fixing up some such
story as that. And it is so _natural_, you see, for a big dog to bounce
against a glass which is so near the floor as this one, that your folks
will easily believe it."

"O Emily! Emily! How can you talk so?" said Jessie, gazing at her cousin
with an expression of pity and surprise.

"She talks just right," said Charlie. "It's a first-rate story, and will
get us out of the scrape nicely. Bravo, Emily! I won't hit you again for
ever so long."

Jessie was horror-struck to hear her cousins talk in this cool and
hardened manner. To her mind a lie was of all things the most mean and
wicked. She had just shown her hatred of it, by her penitence for merely
acting a lie in fun. But this proposal to tell a downright lie, for the
purpose of escaping the consequences of an unlucky accident, looked like
asking her to commit a very shocking crime. She felt a shudder creep over
her, and shrinking from her cousins, as if they had been deadly serpents,
she pushed her chair back a yard or two, and said:

"Emily, I would die before I would tell such a lie. I hope you won't think
of doing it. It's _so_ wicked