Holidays at Roselands | Page 9

know; perhaps we could; but papa said I mustn't play it,"
replied Elsie, shaking her head doubtfully.
"But maybe he'd let you, if we don't sit on the floor," persisted the little
girl.
Several other little ones joined their entreaties to Flora's, and at length
Elsie said, "Well, I will go and ask papa; perhaps he may let me, if I tell
him we are not going to sit on the floor."
She went to his dressing-room, but he was not there. Next she tried the
library, and was more successful; he was in an easy chair by the fire,
reading.
But now that she had found him, Elsie, remembering how often he had
told her never to ask a second time to do what he had once forbidden,

was more than half afraid to prefer her request, and very much inclined
to go back without doing so.
But as she stood a moment irresolute, he looked up from his book, and
seeing who it was, smiled and held out his hand.
She went to him then, and said timidly, "Papa, some of the little ones
want me to play jack-stones, to teach them how; may I, if we don't sit
on the floor?"
"Elsie," he replied, in a tone of great displeasure, "it was only the other
day that I positively forbade you to play that game, and, after all that I
have said to you about not asking a second time, it surprises me very
much that you would dare to do it. Go to my dressing-room, and shut
yourself into the closet there."
Elsie burst into tears, as she turned to obey, then, hesitatingly, asked,
"May I go down first, papa, and tell the children that I can't come to
play with them?"
"Elsie!" he exclaimed, in his sternest tone; and not daring to utter
another word, trembling and weeping, she hastened from the room, and
shut herself up as he had bidden her.
The closet was large, and there was a stool she could sit on; but when
she had shut the door, it was both dark and cold. It was a dismal place
to be in, and poor Elsie wondered how long she would have to stay
there.
It seemed a long, long time; so long that she began to think it must be
night, and to fear that perhaps her papa had forgotten all about having
sent her there, or that he considered her so very naughty as to deserve
to stay there all night.
But at last she heard his step, and then he opened the door and called,
"Elsie!"
"Yes, papa, I am here," she replied in a trembling voice, full of tears.

"Come to me," he said; and then, as he took her hand, "Why, how cold
you are, child," he exclaimed; "I am really sorry you have been so long
in that dismal place. I did not intend to punish you so severely, and
should not have kept you there more than half an hour, at the _very
longest_; but company came in, and I quite forgot you."
While speaking thus he had led her up to the fire and sat down with her
on his knee. "My poor darling!" he said, "these little hands are very
cold, let papa rub them; and are your feet cold too?"
"Yes sir," she replied, and he pulled off her shoes and stockings, and
moving his chair closer to the fire, held her feet out toward the blaze,
and rubbed them in his warm hands.
"You have been crying a good deal," he said, looking keenly into her
face.
"Yes, papa," she replied, dropping her face on his breast and bursting
into tears; "I thought you were going to leave me there all night."
"Did you? and were you afraid?"
"No, papa, not afraid, because I know you would be sleeping in the
next room; and besides, God could take care of me as well in the closet
as anywhere else. Is it getting night, papa, or morning?"
"It is beginning to grow dark," he said. "But tell me why you cried, if
you were not afraid."
"Partly because I was uncomfortable, papa, but more because I was
sorry I had been naughty, and displeased you, and afraid that I can
never learn to be good."
"It is very strange," he remarked, "that you cannot learn not to ask to do
what I have forbidden. I shall have to punish you every time you do it;
for you must learn that no means no, and that you are never to coax or
tease after papa has once said it. I love my little girl very dearly, and
want to do all I can to make her happy, but I must have her entirely

submissive and obedient