ave said
very wrong words, my child, and I cannot tell you how much pain you have
caused to me and your mamma. I hope that you will be very sorry
by-and-by; but you know, Willie, being sorry will not undo your fault,
nor take away the envious feelings which you have allowed to spring up
within you; and unless such feelings as these are conquered you will be
an unhappy little boy, and grow up to be an unhappy man. Willie," he
added, after another pause only interrupted by my struggling sobs at
longer intervals than at first, "you know, my child, whose strength you
will need to help you in the battle: you are but a weak little boy, and
cannot help yourself; you must pray for the help of God's Holy Spirit,
or else you will never conquer these wrong feelings."

I hung my head, and remained silent.

"I trust Aleck knows nothing of all this," resumed my father. "We have
promised to care for him as though he belonged to us. I will not allow
him to feel that he is disliked by the boy who promised to love him."

"No, papa," I put in, for my temper had well-nigh expended itself; "I
do like him still--rather--only not always. I like him very much
sometimes: I think now I'm very glad he came--only I don't like his
having things that I mayn't have."

"That, Willie," answered my father, "must be left to me to decide. I
shall miss my little boy very much this afternoon; but I cannot allow
you to come to Stavemoor with me to-day, after all that has passed."

There was just this ray of comfort in the announcement, that at least
Aleck would not on this particular occasion gain the object of my
ambition.

"Is Aleck to ride my pony, then?" I inquired, half ashamed of myself for
asking.

The quick, decided manner, in which my father withdrew the arm he held
around me, and answered,--

"Certainly not, unless I find Rickson thinks the gray would be unsafe,"
made me feel more unhappy than ever; and it was with a sorrowful heart
that I obeyed a summons to the school-room brought in at that moment by
my cousin, and showed up my incorrect and unfinished sum to Mr.
Glengelly.

I suppose that he saw something had gone wrong with me, by my
appearance; he was certainly more merciful than usual over my
shortcomings in arithmetic, and the lesson-time went by so pleasantly
that I was quite in good humour by the time it ended, and went out in
restored spirits for the half hour's exercise which preceded our dinner,
determining that, the first