‘I don’t think so; I don’t think I ever could kiss her; for I never should have said what was not true without her, and that is what makes Uncle Reginald so angry still. He would not kiss me even when he went away. Oh, Mysie! that’s worse than anything,’ and Dolores’s face contracted with tears very near at hand. ‘I did always so love Uncle Regie, and he won’t forgive me, and father will be just the same.’ ‘Poor dear, dear Dolly,’ said Mysie, hugging her. ‘But you know fathers always forgive, and we will try and make a little prayer about it, like the Prodigal Son’s, you know.’ ‘I don’t blow properly,’ said Dolores. ‘I think I can say him,’ said Mysie, and the little girls sat with enfolded arms, while Mysie reverently went through the parable. ‘But he had been very wicked indeed,’ objected Dolores, ‘what one calls dissipated. Isn’t that making too much of such things as girls like us can do.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Mysie, knitting her young brows; ‘you see if we are as bad as ever we can be while we are at home, it is really and truly as bad in us ourselves as in shocking people that run away, because it shows we might have done anything if we had not been taken care of. And the poor son felt as if he could not be pardoned, which is just what you do feel.’ ‘Aunt Lily forgives me,’ said Dolores, wistfully. ‘And your father will, I’m sure,’ said Mysie, ‘though he is yet a great way off. And as to Uncle Regie, I do wish something would happen that you could tell the truth about. If you had only broken the palm-tree instead of me, and I didn’t do right even about that! But if any mischief does happen, or accident, I promise you, Dolly, you shall have the telling of it, if you have had ever so little to do with it, and then mamma will write to Uncle Regie that you have proved yourself truthful.’ Dolores did not seem much consoled by this curious promise, and Mysie’s childishness suddenly gave way to something deeper. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘if one is true, people find it out and trust one.’ ‘People can’t see into one,’ said Dolly. ‘Mamma says there is a bright side and a dark side from which to look at everybody and everything,’ said Mysie. ‘I know that,’ said Dolores; ‘I looked at the dark side of you all when I came here.’ ‘Some day,’ said Mysie, ‘your bright side will come round to Uncle Regie, as it has to us, you dear, dear old Dolly.’ ‘But do you know, Mysie,’ whispered Dolores, in her embrace, ‘there’s something more dreadful that I’m very much afraid of. Do you know there hasn’t been a letter from father since he was staying with Aunt Phyllis--not to me, nor Aunt Jane, nor anybody!’ ‘Well, he couldn’t write when he was at sea, I mean there wasn’t any post.’ ‘It would not take so long as this to get to Fiji; and besides. Uncle Regie telegraphed to ask about that dreadful cheque, and there hasn’t been any answer at all.’