Elsies New Relations | Page 8

will be painful to them to be severe with you, and yet I see that you will compel them to it."
"I won't be punished by anybody but you! Nobody else has a right!" burst out Lulu.
"Yes, my child, I have given them the right, and the only way for you to escape punishment is not to deserve it. And if you prove too troublesome for them, you are to be sent to a boarding-school, and that, you will understand, involves separation from Max and Gracie, and life among total strangers."
"Papa, you wouldn't, you couldn't be so cruel!" she said, bursting into tears and hiding her face on his breast.
"I hope you will not be so cruel to yourself as to make it necessary," he said. "I have fondly hoped you were improving, but your conduct to-night shows me that you are still a self-willed, rebellious child."
"Well, papa, I've wanted a bird on my hat for ever so long, and I believe you would have let me have it, too, if Mamma Vi and Grandma Elsie hadn't said that."
"I shouldn't let you have it, if they were both in favor of it," he said severely.
"Why, papa?"
"Because of the cruelty it would encourage. And now, Lucilla, I want you to reflect how very kind it is in Grandpa Dinsmore and Grandma Elsie to be willing to take my children in and share with them their own delightful home. You have not the slightest claim upon their kindness, and very few people in their case would have made such an offer. I really feel almost ashamed to accept so much without being able to make some return, even if I knew my children would all behave as dutifully and gratefully as possible. And knowing how likely your conduct is to be the exact reverse of that, I can hardly reconcile it to my conscience to let you go with them to Ion. I am afraid I ought to place you in a boarding-school at once, before I am ordered away."
"O papa, don't!" she begged. "I'll try to behave better."
"You must promise more than that," he said; "promise me that you will yield to the authority of your mamma and her mother and grandfather as if it were mine; obeying their orders and submitting to any punishment they may see fit to inflict, just as if it were my act."
"Papa, have you said they might punish me?" she asked, with a look of wounded pride.
"Yes; I have full confidence in their wisdom and kindness. I know they will not abuse the authority I give them, and I have told them they may use any measures with my children that they would with their own in the same circumstances. Are you ready to give the promise I require?"
"Papa, it is too hard!"
"The choice is between that and being sent to boarding-school."
"Oh, it's so hard!" she sobbed.
"Not hard at all if you choose to be good," her father said. "In that case you will have a delightful life at Ion. Do you make the promise?"
"Yes, sir," she said, as if the words were wrung from her, then hid her face on his breast again and cried bitterly.
"My little daughter, these are tears of pride and stubbornness," sighed her father, passing his hand caressingly over her hair, "and you will never be happy until those evil passions are cast out of your heart. They are foes which you must fight and conquer by the help of Him who is mighty to save, or they will cost you the loss of your soul. Any sin unrepented of and unforsaken will drag you down to eternal death; for the Bible says, 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.'"
"Papa," she said, "you are the only person God commands me to obey, and I'm willing to do that."
"No, it seems not, when my command is that you obey some one else. My little girl, you need something that I cannot give you; and that is a change of heart. Go to Jesus for it, daughter; ask Him to wash away all your sins in His precious blood and to create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you. He is able and willing to do it, for He says, 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' We will kneel down and ask Him now."
"Papa, I do love you so, I love you dearly, and I will try to be a better girl," Lulu said, clasping her arms tightly about his neck, as, having laid her in her bed, he bent down to kiss her good-night.
"I hope so, my darling," he said; "nothing could make me happier than to know you to be a truly good child, trying to live right that