“Elsie,” said Lucy, presently, in an undertone, “Carry has been showing us her bracelet, and I think it is beautiful; she won’t tell whose hair it is—­I guess it’s her sister’s, maybe—­but I’m sure yours would make just as pretty a bracelet, and I want one for my mamma; won’t you give me one of your curls to make it? you have so many that one would never be missed.”

“No, Miss Lucy,” said Mr. Dinsmore, looking at them over his paper, “you can’t have one of my curls; I can’t spare it.”

“I don’t want one of your curls, Mr. Dinsmore,” laughed Lucy, merrily.  “I didn’t ask for it.  Your hair is very pretty, too, but it would be quite too short.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Lucy, if my ears deceived me,” said he, with mock gravity, “but I was quite certain I heard you asking for one of my curls.  Perhaps, though, you are not aware of the fact that my curls grow on two heads.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Dinsmore,” replied Lucy, laughing again, “but it was one of Elsie’s curls I asked for.”

“Elsie doesn’t own any,” said he; “they all belong to me.  I let her wear them, to be sure, but that is all; she has no right to give them away.”

He turned to his paper again, and Elsie bent over her work, her face flushed, and her little hand trembling so that she could scarcely hold her needle.

“I’m afraid I ought to tell papa,” she thought, “that I did give one of my curls away.  I never thought about his caring, but I might have known, because when I wanted my hair cut last summer, he said they shouldn’t one of them be touched.  Oh! dear, why didn’t I think of that?  I am afraid he will be very much displeased.”

“Don’t tell him, then,” whispered the tempter, “he is not likely ever to miss it.”

“Nay, but it would be wrong to hide your fault,” said conscience.

“I will tell him,” she resolved.

“Wait till to-morrow, then,” whispered the tempter again; “if you tell him now, very likely he will deprive you of your ride this afternoon, as a punishment.”

So the struggle went on in the little breast while others were chatting and laughing around her, never suspecting what a battle the little girl was fighting within her own heart.

Presently Lucy jumped up.  “Oh!  I am so tired sewing; come, girls, let’s put on our things, and take a run in the garden.”

Carry and Mary readily assented.

“I must speak to papa first,” Elsie said in a half whisper, “but don’t wait for me.”

She had spoken low, but not so low that his quick ear did not catch the sound.  He had heard her, and laying his paper down on his knee, as the other little girls ran away, he turned half round and held out his hand, asking, with a smile, “Well, daughter, what is it? what have you to say to papa?”

She went to him at once, and he was surprised to see how she was trembling, and that her cheeks were flushed and her eyes full of tears.