Before the child had time to think, the mischievous monkey had seized the cake, and was travelling quickly up the blinds and moulding, over the sill, and, as Nettie drew a frightened breath, in at the window. "O, dear!" said Nettie; "now I'll have to be punished. It's silly of mamma to be so easily frightened." Her mamma, meanwhile, had just fallen into a doze. The rattling of the chain startled her; she opened her eyes, and saw the ugly little black monkey perched close beside her. She was quite startled, and very angry with Nettie, of course: after securing the monkey safely in her cage, she called Nettie to her, and speaking quite severely, told her to return to the parlor, to sit down on the lounge, and neither to rise from it, nor touch anything, until her father and Eric came home. Poor Nettie! It was very dull indeed for her, and before long she was sobbing quite bitterly. Meanwhile Allan finished his letter, and took up his cap, meaning to take a walk around the square. Looking into the parlor, and seeing Nettie's distress, he resolved to give up his walk and to comfort Nettie. "I wouldn't cry, Nettie," he said, so softly and kindly that she stopped crying, and looked up at him. "I will stay with you now. I've written my letter." Nettie's face lighted up instantly, but fell again as she exclaimed,-- "But it is not fair, Allan: you told Eric you should take a walk; mamma is very unkind and unjust, too! I could not help Froll's going up that time." "O, Nettie," said Allan, "don't ever speak so of your mother, so kind and good. My mamma is dead, Nettie; and if yours should ever be laid away in the cold, cold ground, you would feel so dreadfully to think you had wronged her!" Nettie was crying again. "I _do_ love mamma, and it was very bad of me to speak so; but, O, dear! I never _do_ do anything right. I don't see why I can't be good, like Adele." "I know what makes Adele so good and gentle," said Allan. "She loves the Lord, and tries to please him." "But _I can't_!" said Nettie, piteously. "O, yes, you can, Nettie. Every one can." "Grown-up people can, I know." "And children too," said Allan, earnestly. "Let me tell you a story auntie used to tell me, when I was blind." Nettie assented, and Allan repeated the story of "Little Cristelle," unconscious, the while, that he was fulfilling the teaching of song in ministering to Nettie. "Slowly forth from the village church, The voice of the choristers hushed overhead, Came little Cristelle. She paused in the porch, Pondering what the preacher had said. "'_Even the youngest, humblest child_ _Something may do to please the Lord._' 'Now what,' thought she, and half sadly smiled, 'Can I, so little and poor, afford?'