“‘Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation,’ Jesus said.  The moment that you feel the rising of anger in your breast lift up your heart to him for strength to resist.”

“I do intend to always, papa,” she sighed, tightening her clasp of his neck and laying her cheek to his, “but oh it is so, so easy to forget!”

“I know it, dear child, but I can only encourage you to continue the fight with your evil nature, looking ever unto Jesus for help.  Press forward in the heavenly way, and if you fall, get up again and go on with redoubled energy and determination; and you will win the victory at last; for ’in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.’

“Now, if you feel that you are safe in doing so, you may go back to your mates.”

There was a very sweet expression on Lulu’s face as she rejoined her mates, and her manner was gentle and subdued.

“So you’ve come back,” remarked Sydney.  “What did your papa want with you?”

“O Syd,” exclaimed Rosie, “that’s private, you know!”

“Oh to be sure!  I beg pardon, Lu,” said Sydney.

“You are quite excusable,” returned Lulu pleasantly.  “Papa had something to say to me, that was all,” and she glanced up at him with such a loving look, as at that instant he entered the room, that no one could suspect the talk between them had been other than most pleasant.

“Well, you have come back just in time; we are going to play the game of Authors,” said Herbert, beginning to distribute the cards.

The words had hardly left his lips when a sharp tap at the window made them all jump.  Then a woman’s voice spoke in piteous accents.

“Oh let me in, good people! my baby and I are starving to death, and freezing in this bitter winter wind.”

“Oh who is it? who is it?” cried several of the girls, sending frightened glances in the direction from which the voice had come.

“I’ll soon see,” said Harold, hurrying toward the window.

But a gruff voice spoke from the hall.  “Don’t mind her, sir; she’s a gypsy liar and thief; she stole the baby from its mother.”

Harold paused, stood uncertainly in the middle of the floor for an instant, then turning quickly, retraced his steps, went to the hall door and glanced this way and that.

“There is no one here,” he said, then burst into a laugh as, turning round once more, he perceived Mr. Lilburn quietly seated near the open door into the adjoining parlor where the older people were.  “Cousin Ronald, may I ask what you know of that gypsy and the stolen child?”

“What do I ken about her, laddie?” queried the old gentleman in his turn.  “Wad ye insinuate that I associate wi’ sic trash as that?”

“Oh she’s quite a harmless creature, I’ve no doubt,” laughed Harold.

“O Uncle Harold, please let her in,” pleaded Grace, with tears in her sweet blue eyes.