The rich color on Elsie's cheek was deepening every moment. This was certainly narrow ground. She felt herself jostled against. "Clever and sarcastic things" were so natural to her pen that they almost seemed to write themselves. What a ridiculous report she had given of Ned Holden's failure in geometry. How skillfully she had turned into ridicule his mortified attempts to recover himself. She had imagined her cousins, Carrie and Ben, laughing immoderately over the whole thing. Well, what harm? Her account of it would never reach poor Ned's ears: she would not have given it for anything had there been the least fear, but—what good did it accomplish? Had she written it with a purpose? Yes, she had; her purpose had been to give a few minutes' fun to her cousins. Anything wrong about that? Yet the truthful girl admitted to herself almost immediately that it was fun at the expense of certain fine feelings which she had jarred. Was she inclined to be so sympathetic with failures as she would be if it were not such fun to write them up? What a caricature she had made of Ned as he stood there on the platform, his face aglow, the eyes of a hundred girls leveled at him! She laughed again as she remembered how funny her picture was; but then she sighed. Soiled hands. Was it possible that she had soiled hers that day? Did Dr. Falconer mean such things? Did he know about the letter and the caricature? She felt her face grow hot over the possibility; she would not have him know it for anything! Here again was a revelation. Why not? And if not Dr. Falconer, surely not the Lord Jesus! Yet He knew. There really was not much comfort in thinking about it. But Elsie decided that these things must be thought about and decided another time. If it really was wrong to repeat in a ludicrous way the ludicrous things that the boys, and sometimes the girls, and sometimes the professors were doing, why, then she must give it up; but it was great fun. Another marked sentence—her name again: "Perhaps one hardly needs to say that kept hands will be very gentle hands. Quick, angry motions of the heart will sometimes force themselves into expression by the hand, though the tongue may be restrained. The very way in which we close a door, or lay down a book, may be a victory or a defeat." At this point Elsie closed the little book and laid it down with no gentle hand. She was vexed with it. What nonsense was this! The idea that when one banged the door a little with nobody around to see, and not meaning anything in particular, only a general vexation, one had dishonored Christ! That was straining a point! Just as if people could keep from doing those little things! And just as though they did any hurt! The little book was fanatical; she didn't like it at all.