hink; and if you are
doubtful, you may be pretty sure it is wrong."

"Mamma, we mustn't tell tales to you?"

"No, dear; but perhaps you can consult me without that; and do not forget
that you can always lift up your heart to God for help to know and do the
right."

"Yes, mamma," returned the little girl thoughtfully, "and I do believe
Elsie will 'most always be there and know what's right."

"I'm not sure," said her sister, with a grave shake of the head, "I wish
we could always have mamma by to tell us."

"But mamma cannot be with you always, darlings," Elsie said, regarding
them with yearning tenderness, "and so, as your papa and I have often told
you, you must learn to think and decide for yourselves; about some things
now, and about others as you grow older and wiser. Some things the Bible
tells us plainly, and in regard to those we have nothing to do but obey."

CHAPTER FOURTH.

"A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."
--PROVERBS xxix. 15.

Lucy, too, had a talk with her children, in which she begged them quite
pathetically, not to disgrace her before the expected guests, Mr. Dinsmore
especially, who was so very strict in his ideas of how children ought to
be brought up, and how they should behave.

They promised readily enough to "behave splendidly" and for a few days did
so astonishingly well that, as she laughingly said, "she began to grow
frightened lest they were becoming too good to live."

But she need not have been alarmed; the reaction was not long in coming
and was sufficient to relieve all apprehension that they were in immediate
danger from an overplus of goodness.

It began on the morning after Mr. Dinsmore's departure. Gertrude was late
to breakfast, and when reproved by her mother answered in a manner so
disrespectful as to quite astonish the young Travillas. They expected to
see her banished at once from the table and the room; but her mother only
looked grave and said in a tone of displeasure, "Gertrude, I cannot have
you speak to me in that way--Don't do it again."

"I don't care; you needn't scold so about every little trifle then,"
muttered the delinquent in an undertone, pulling the dish of meat toward
her, helping herself and spilling the gravy on the clean tablecloth.

Mrs. Ross did not seem to hear, she was spreading a piece of bread with
the sweetest and freshest of butter, for Sophie.

"I don't want it, I want