Esther wonderingly obeyed, and slid down the stairs like a spirit. I scorned to listen any longer, though I would have given anything and everything I possessed to have unravelled the tangled maze of voices in the hall, and known how my refusal was received. Pride to the rescue! however, and I was bending over my German, when my aunt looked in a moment at the door, to inquire if I didn't care to go. I said, "No, thank you; I have my translation to finish, and, if you are willing, I will stay at home." Just then, Josephine and Grace came up, and Essie burst into the room, exclaiming: "Mamma, mamma, what shall I wear? What frock had I better put on?" "Why, you're not going," cried Josephine, pettishly. "Surely, mamma, you do not mean to let that child go. There's no room for her if Phil goes, and she'll be whimpering with the cold in ten minutes." "Mr. Rutledge only asked her for politeness," said Grace. "He never thought of such a snip really going." "She'll spoil everything," said Josephine, decidedly. "I don't care to go if she does." "I think, on the whole, my dear Essie," said Mrs. Churchill, "that it is best for you not to go. You must amuse yourself at home, and be a good child; we shall not be gone very long." The little girl's lips moved, as if she would speak, but no words came, and, as the others left the room, I looked at her with some anxiety. I never saw a face so changed. The brief radiance that had lighted it had passed away, and in its place was a livid look of passion that fairly frightened me. "Why, Essie, child, don't take it so to heart," I said, soothingly, attempting to touch her cold, clenched hand, but with a fierce gesture she released herself and turned away. I tried to pacify and divert her, but received no word in answer, till, from the window, we saw the party enter the sleigh, and after a moment of adjusting sleigh-robes and furs, the fine horses started spiritedly forward, to the music of their own merry bells; then, with a violent scream, the child threw herself upon the floor, and shook from head to foot with a passion that many men and women pass through life without experiencing. Such tempests cannot fail to blight the souls they sweep over; they bow the cracking forest, and strip it of its leaves; the tender sapling, alone and unprotected in its flexile youth, can hardly escape undesolated. Swayed and whipped about with the fierce blast, all that is tender and delicate about it must be blighted; the stem that should have been fair and straight, must, if it survive the trial, be twisted, and rough, and gnarled; it may strike a deeper root; it will never cast as fine a shade, nor be as fair a tree. If, unable to sustain the storm, the frail stem snap, and the life-blood ooze away, is it a questionable providence, or an utter mercy?