“Certainly, if you are ready to obey.”

The child’s lip quivered.  “I’m so tired of that bread and milk,” she said.  “Can’t I have something else?  I’m sure you and everybody in the house have a great many good things.”

“We have, and it is a great grief to me that I cannot share them with my little Lulu.  I have very little enjoyment in them because of that.”

“Papa, I’m sorry I’ve been so naughty, so impertinent to you.  I don’t mean ever to be so again; and I’ll be a good girl every way after this, if you’ll let me out.”

“Then come with me to your mamma,” he said, holding out his hand.

“I can’t ask pardon of her,” she said, turning away with a sob.

“You must, Lucilla,” he said in a tone that made her tremble.  “You need not think to conquer your father.  I shall keep you here on this plain fare and in solitary confinement until you are entirely penitent and submissive.”

He waited a moment, but receiving no reply, went out and locked the door.

“She is still stubborn,” he said to Violet, whom he found alone in their room across the hall, sighing deeply as he spoke; “and the close confinement is telling upon her; she grows pale and thin.  Oh, how my heart bleeds for her, my dear child!  But I must be firm.  This is an important crisis in her life, and her future character—­therefore her happiness for time and eternity—­will depend greatly upon how this struggle ends.”

The next day was the Sabbath, and on returning from church, he went to Lulu’s room.

Little had passed between them since the talk of yesterday when he carried in her dinner.  He found her now sitting in a listless attitude, and she did not look up on his entrance.

He lifted her from her chair, sat down in it himself, and took her on his knee.

“Has this holy day brought no good thoughts or feelings to my little girl?” he asked, gently smoothing the hair back from her forehead.

“You know I couldn’t go to church, papa,” she said, without looking at him.

“No; I know you could have gone, had you chosen to be a good, obedient child.”

“Papa, how can you go on trying to make me tell a lie when you have always taught me it was such a wicked, wicked thing to do?”

“I try to make you tell a lie! what can you mean, daughter?” he asked in great surprise.

“Yes, papa, you are trying to make me ask Mamma Vi’s pardon after I have said I wouldn’t.”

“Ah, my child, that was a wicked promise because it was rebellion against your father’s authority, which God commands you to respect.  Therefore the sin was in making it, and it is your duty to break it.”

Then he made her repeat the fifth commandment, and called her attention to its promise of long life and prosperity, as far as it shall be for God’s glory and their own good, to all such as keep it.

“I want you to inherit that blessing, my child,” he said, “and to escape the curses pronounced against those who refuse obedience to their parents.”