"I think my little girl has something to say to mother," she whispered softly, smoothing back the cl.u.s.tering curls, and looking tenderly into the tear-stained face.

Violet nodded a.s.sent; her heart was so full she could not have spoken a word without bursting into tears and sobs.

Mamma understood, rose and led her from the room; led her to her own dressing-room where they could be quite secure from intrusion. Then seating herself and taking the child on her lap, "What is wrong with my dear little daughter?" she asked.

"O, mamma, mamma, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" cried the child, bursting into a pa.s.sion of tears and sobs, putting her arms about her mother's neck and hiding her face on her breast.

"Mamma is sorry, too, dear, sorry for anything that makes her Vi unhappy. What is it? what can mother do to comfort you."

"Mamma I don't deserve for you to be so kind, and you'll have to punish, 'stead of comforting. But I just want to tell about my own self; you know I can't tell tales, mamma."

"No, daughter, I do not ask, or wish it; but tell me about yourself."

"Mamma, it will make you sorry, ever so sorry."

"Yes, dear, but I must bear it for your sake."

"O mamma, I don't like to make you sorry I--I wish I hadn't, hadn't been naughty, oh so naughty, mamma! for I played with some of your mamma's things that you forbade us to touch, and--and one lovely plate got broken all up."

"I am very sorry to hear that," returned the mother, "yet far more grieved by my child's sin. But how did you get the door open and the plates off the shelf?"

"I didn't, mamma: they were out."

"Some one else did it?"

"Yes, mamma; but you know I can't tell tales. It wasn't any of our children, though, none of them were naughty but just me."

"Were you playing with the plate? did you break it?"

"No mamma, I didn't touch the plates, but I was dressing one of the dollies. They are all locked up again now, mamma, and I don't think anybody will touch them any more."

A little tender, serious talk on the sin and danger of disobedience to parents, and the mother knelt with her child, and in a few simple words asked G.o.d's forgiveness for her. Then telling Vi she must remain alone in that room till bedtime, she left her.

Not one harsh or angry word had been spoken, and the young heart was full of a pa.s.sionate love to her mother that made the thought of having grieved her a far bitterer punishment than the enforced solitude, though that was at any time irksome enough to one of Vi's social, fun-loving temperament.

It cost the mother a pang to inflict the punishment and leave the darling alone in her trouble; but Elsie was not one to weakly yield to inclination when it came in conflict with duty. Hers was not a selfish love; she would bear any present pain to secure the future welfare of her children.

She rejoined her friends in the drawing-room apparently as serenely happy as her wont, but through all the afternoon and evening her heart was with her little one in her banishment and grief, yearning over her with tenderest mother love.

Little Elsie, too, missed her sister, and returning from her walk, went in search of her. She found her at last in their mamma's dressing-room seated at the window, her cheek resting on her hand, the tears coursing slowly down, while her eyes gazed longingly out over the beautiful fields and lovely orange groves.

"Oh my own Vi, my darling little sister! what's the matter?" asked Elsie, clasping her in her arms, and kissing the wet cheek.

A burst of bitter sobs, while the small arms clung about the sister's neck, and the golden head rested for an instant on her shoulder, then the words, "Ah I'd tell you, but I can't now, for you must run right away, because mamma said I must stay here all alone till bedtime."

"Then I must go, pet; but don't cry so: if you've been naughty and are sorry, Jesus, and mamma too, will forgive you and love you just the same," Elsie said, kissing her again, then releasing her, hurried from the room, crying heartily in sympathy.

On the upper veranda, whither she went to recover her composure, before rejoining her mates, she found her mother pacing slowly to and fro.

"Is my Elsie in trouble, too?" Mrs. Travilla asked, pausing in her walk and holding out her hand.

"For my Vi, mamma," sobbed Elsie, taking the hand and pressing it to her lips.

"Yes, poor little pet! mother's heart aches for her too," Mrs. Travilla answered, her own eyes filling. "I am glad my little daughters love and sympathize with each other."

"Mamma, I would rather stay with Vi, than be with the others. May I?"

"No, daughter, I have told her she must spend the rest of the day alone."

"Yes, mamma, she told me so and wouldn't let me stay even one minute to hear about her trouble."

"That was right."

Time crept by very slowly to Violet. She thought that afternoon the longest she had ever known. After a while she heard a familiar step, and almost before she knew it papa had her in his arms.

With a little cry of joy she put hers around his neck and returned the kiss he had just given her.

"Oh I'm so glad!" she said, "but, papa, you'll have to go away, because n.o.body must stay with me; I'm--"

"Papa may," he said, sitting down with her on his knee. "So you told mamma about the naughtiness?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am glad you did. Always tell mamma everything. If you have disobeyed her never delay a moment to go and confess it."

"Yes, papa: but if it's you?"

"Then come to me in the same way. If you want to be a happy child have no concealment from father or mother."

"Shall I tell you about it now, papa?"

"You may do as you like about that since your mother knows it all."

"Papa, I'm afraid you wouldn't love such a naughty girl any more."

"Mamma loves you quite as well, and so shall I; because you are our own, own little daughter. There were tears in mamma's eyes when she told me that she had had to punish our little Vi."

"Oh I'm so sorry to have made mamma cry," sobbed the child.

"Sin always brings sorrow and suffering sooner or later, my little girl; remember that; and that it is because Jesus loves us that he would save us from our sins."

After a little more talk, in which Violet repeated to him the same story of her wrong doing that she had already told her mother, her papa left her and she was again alone till mammy came with her supper--a bowl of rich sweet milk and bread from the unbolted flour, that might have tempted the appet.i.te of an epicure.

"Come, honey, dry dose wet eyes an' eat yo' supper," said mammy, setting it out daintily on a little table which she placed before the child and covered with a fine damask cloth fresh from the iron. "De milk's mos' all cream, an' de bread good as kin be: an' you kin hab much as eber you want ob both ob dem."

"Did mamma say so, mammy?"

"Yes, chile; an' don't shed no mo' dose tears now; ole mammy lubs you like her life."