“Good-morning, my child,” she said in pleasant, cheery tones, and smiling sweetly as she spoke; then, bending clown, she gave the little girl a kiss.

“Good-morning, grandma Elsie,” murmured Lulu, blushing deeply, and casting down her eyes:  “you are very kind to come to see me, and to kiss me too, when I have been so bad.  Please take a chair,” she added, drawing one forward.

“Thank you, dear; but I would rather sit on the sofa yonder, with you by my side,” Elsie said, taking Lulu’s hand, and leading her to it, then, when they had seated themselves, putting the other arm about the child’s waist, and drawing her close to her side.  “I feel that I have been neglecting you,” she went on; “but my thoughts have been much taken up with other things, and”—­

“O grandma Elsie!” cried Lulu, bursting into tears.  “I didn’t deserve that you should show me the least kindness, or think of me at all except as a very bad, disagreeable girl.  I should think you’d want to turn me out of your house, and say I should never come into it again.”

“No, dear child, I have no such feeling toward you:  if I had, should I not be very much like that wicked servant to whom his lord had forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents, yet who refused to have compassion on his fellow-servant who owed him a hundred pence?  I should, indeed; for my sins against God have been far greater, and more heinous, than yours against me or mine.”

“But you were always such a good child when you were a little girl, and I am such a bad one.”

“No, my dear; that is quite a mistake; I was not always good as a child, and I am very far from being perfect as a woman.”

“You seem so to me, grandma Elsie:  I never know of your doing and saying any thing the least bit wrong.”

“But you, my child, see only the outward appearance, while God looks at the heart; and he knows that, though I am truly his servant, trying earnestly to do his will, I fall lamentably short of it.”

“Grandma Elsie, I didn’t know it was the baby:  I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“No, my dear, I know you didn’t.”

“But papa said he must punish me all the same, because it was being in a passion that made me do it.  Grandma Elsie, if you had such a dreadful temper as mine, wouldn’t you be discouraged about ever conquering it?”

“No, my child, not while I could find such words as these in the Bible:  ‘O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself:  but in Me is thine help.’  ’Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.’  ’He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.’  ’God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’”

“‘His people,’” repeated Lulu; then with a sigh, “But I am not one of them, grandma Elsie; so those promises are not for me.”