“Yes, I am sorry, papa, and I don’t mean to behave so any more; still, I’d feel more comfortable, and surer of not being just as bad again in a few days or weeks, if you’d punish me.  So please do.”

“Very well, then, I will give you an extra task or two,” he said, taking up her Latin grammar, “I will give you twice the usual lesson in this.  Then, not as a punishment, but for your good, I want you to search out all the texts you can find in God’s Holy Word about the sinfulness of anger and pride and the duty of confessing our faults, not only to him, but to those whom we have injured by them.”

Opening the Family Bible which lay on the table close at hand, “Here is one in Proverbs,” he said. “’He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy."’

Then turning to the New Testament, he read again, “’Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.’”

“That is in Matthew,” he said, “and here in the Epistle of James,” again turning over the leaves, “we read perhaps the plainest direction of all on the subject, ’Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed.’”

“But, papa——­” she paused, hanging her head while a vivid blush suffused her cheeks.

“Well, daughter, what is it?  Do not be afraid to let me know all your thoughts.  I want you always to talk freely to me, that if you are wrong I may be able to convince you of the right.  I want my children to act intelligently, doing right because they see that it is right, and not merely because papa commands it.”

“Please don’t be angry with me, papa, but, it did seem to me a sort of degradation to have to ask pardon of a—­a woman who has to work for her living like Alma,” she said with some hesitation, blushing and hanging her head as she spoke.

“I am very, very sorry to hear such sentiments from a daughter of mine,” he returned in a gravely concerned tone and with a slight sigh.  “It is wicked pride, my child, that puts such thoughts in your head.

“And who can say that there may not come a time when you too will have to work for your living?  The Bible tells us riches certainly take to themselves wings and fly away.”

Again turning over the leaves, “Here is the passage—­twenty-third chapter of Proverbs, fourth and fifth verses:  ’Labor not to be rich; cease from thine own wisdom.  Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.’

“And how little are they really worth, while we have them?  ’Riches profit not in the day of wrath,’ we are told in this Holy Book.  And it says a great deal of the folly and sinfulness of pride; particularly in this book of Proverbs;” turning over the leaves he read here and there—­“’When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but, with the lowly is wisdom.’  ’Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.  Better is it to be an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.’