Harry was full of stories about his ride, and she heard as well as she could about the farmer’s big dog that at first wouldn’t let them come in, and afterwards shook hands with them, and the cat that could open doors, and the hens and rabbits, but she forgot all about them in a moment, and only wished she could slide away from the table and nobody see her.  At last the meal was ended, and they were about rising from the table when they were startled by a message from Mrs Gilman’s.  Her little boy was in convulsions.

‘I will go immediately,’ said Mr Maurice, ’poor little fellow! nothing can save him now—­that medicine was my last hope.’

‘Oh, father!’ exclaimed Effie.

‘Nay, my child—­’ Mr Maurice began, but he saw that it was not mere pity that produced so much agitation, and inquired hastily ’what is the matter?’ Poor Effie attempted to speak, but burst into tears.

‘Oh, Effie!’ exclaimed her brother, grasping her arm, ’you couldn’t have forgotten the medicine.’  The poor child only sobbed the harder, and Harry, turning to the table, pointed to the little packet, thus explaining the mystery!

’And so for a selfish gratification you have endangered a fellow-creature’s life,’ said Mr Maurice, sternly.

‘Oh, father!’ exclaimed Harry, ’she’s so sorry!  Don’t cry, Effie, don’t cry!’ he whispered, at the same time passing his arm around her neck, ’father didn’t mean to be so severe, he is only frightened about little James—­I am very sorry I didn’t go, for it was too bad to make you leave the book.’

But all Harry’s soothing words could not make Effie blind to her own neglect, and when she saw her father go out with an anxious, troubled face, and her mother looked so sorrowful without saying a single word to her, she could not help going back in her thoughts to Mrs Town, Rosa Lynmore, and even the miser, and thinking she was worse than any of them.

Her brother Harry still clung around her neck, and kept whispering she was not to blame, the fault was his, till Mrs Maurice called him away, and then very reluctantly he quitted her side.  Poor Effie, thus left without sympathy, crept away to her own little room, and sat down, not merely to weep, but to enter into a regular self-examination.  The truths she thus discovered were exceedingly humiliating, but the child began to feel that she needed humbling, and she did not shrink from the task.  I do not know but Effie’s self-condemnation was greater than the fault really called for, but it certainly was of great use to her, and made her humbler, and gentler, and more forgiving than she ever was before.

Effie did not see her father or Harry again that night, but when her mother came to see if she was warm in her little bed, she whispered in her ear, ’Oh, I have so many faults:  and my heart is full of false gods.  I am afraid I never really loved my Heavenly Father.’

’Yet, Effie, a great many children, and some grown people, would consider this neglect of yours to-day a very small thing.’