"My hero this morning, Walter, is George Washington, the great American general and statesman, the man who had so much to do in the founding of that great republic which is called the United States. A braver man never lived; but he was a brave boy too, brave with moral courage. Not that he wanted natural courage in his early years, for at school none could beat him in leaping, wrestling, swimming, and other athletic exercises. When he was about six years old, his father gave him a new hatchet one day. George was highly pleased, and went about cutting and hacking everything in his way. Unfortunately, amongst other things he used the hatchet with all the force of his little arm on a young English cherry tree, which happened to be a great favourite with his father. Without thinking of the mischief he was doing, George greatly injured the valuable tree. When his father saw what was done he was very angry, and asked the servants who had dared to injure the tree. They said they knew nothing of it; when little George entering the room and hearing the inquiry, though he saw that his father was very angry, went straight up to him, his cheeks colouring crimson as he spoke, and cried, `I did it. I cannot tell a lie. I cut your cherry tree with my hatchet.' `My noble boy,' said his father, as he clasped him in his arms, `I would rather lose a hundred cherry-trees, were their blossoms of silver and their fruit of gold, than that a son of mine should dare to tell a lie.'--Dear Walter, that was true noble courage; and George Washington grew up with it. Those are beautiful lines of one of our old poets, George Herbert,-- "`Dare to be true, nothing can need a lie; The fault that needs it most grows two thereby.'" She paused. Her nephew kept silent for a time, nervously twisting the fringe of her little work-table; and then he said very slowly and sadly,-- "So, auntie, you have found me out. Yes, I've been a beastly coward, and I'm heartily ashamed of myself." "Well, dear boy," replied his aunt, "tell me all about it; happily, it is never too late to mend."