"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 nobody 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 appetite 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." "But I've been very naughty, mammy," sobbed the little girl. "Yes, Miss Wi'let, honey: an' we's all been naughty, but de good Lord forgib us for Jesus' sake if we's sorry an' don't 'tend neber to do so no mo'." "Yes, mammy, Oh I wish you could stay with me I but you musn't: for mamma said I must be all alone." "Yes, darlin'; an' if you wants mo' supper, jes ring dis, an' mammy'll come."