After Uncle Morris and Mrs. Carlton had consented to permit the self-willed cousins to remain a week longer at Glen Morris, the good old man led Emily into the library and talked with her for over half an hour, about the meanness and wickedness of lying. I cannot tell you exactly what he said to her, because I don’t know. That his words were weighty and solemn, I have no doubt; for when Emily left the library her eyes were red with weeping, and she went directly to her room and staid there alone until the bell called her to tea.

Before Emily slept that night, she did what she had not done before during her stay at Glen Morris. She kneeled at the bedside to say her prayers. When she arose, Jessie threw an arm around her waist and kissed her. This was done with so much tenderness, that Emily felt it to be a sign of her cousin’s sympathy with the new feelings and thoughts which were springing up within her heart. Returning the kiss, she said:

“I’m sorry I told that lie about you to-day, Jessie.”

“So am I,” replied the simple-hearted girl; “it is always best to tell the truth, and I hope you will never tell another story as long as you live.”

“I won’t, I’m resolved I won’t; I told Uncle Morris so this afternoon, and (here she lowered her voice to a whisper) I’ve been asking God to help me keep my promise.”

“That’s the way! That’s the way!” replied Jessie. “Uncle Morris says if we mean to be good we must go to school to the Great Teacher who will both teach us, and help us do the lesson.”

With such words as these did Jessie encourage her cousin to enter that beautiful path in which all the pure, noble, and good children in the world are found.

The next day Emily was very quiet. She spent the morning helping Jessie work on her famous quilt. Charlie was as rude and as ugly as ever; having teased his sister for a long time in vain, to play out of doors with him, the spoiled boy hissed at her, and said, “You are an ugly old cat!” Then slamming the door after him, he went into the barn-yard, where the screaming of the pigs, the gabble of the geese, and the clucking of the hens, soon proclaimed that he was venting his ill-temper on the dumb creatures who had their home there. Poor Charlie! the indulgence of his mother, and the almost constant absence of his father from home, had made him a very unhappy, mischievous boy, if, indeed, it had not wholly spoiled him. If Charlie had known what was best for him he would have said to his friends,

“Please don’t let me have my own way.”

Emily needed to make the same request, for she too, had long done pretty much as she pleased; and, as we have seen, she was pleased to do some very bad things.

Two days before the time set for the cousins to return home, they went to spend the day with Carrie Sherwood. Jessie, who was to join them after her morning’s sewing was done, sat down to her work in high spirits. The quilt had grown large within a few days, and as she took it up this morning, she said:

“The little Wizard hasn’t been able to catch me for ever so many days. I guess he won’t trouble me much more now. See my quilt! (here she stood up, and drawing the quilt from the basket, spread it out.) Two more rows of patchwork will finish it. Ha! ha! only two more; I’m so glad. And won’t Uncle Morris be pleased when he sees it spread over his bed some night! ha! ha!”

Here Jessie sat down and began to make her bright little needle fly almost as swiftly as if it had been in a sewing-machine. While she sewed she hummed the following words, which, as Uncle Morris said, had more truth in them than poetry:

Having finished her song, Jessie rested her hands on her lap a moment, and said:

“I love those words, I do. When I grow gray! ha! ha! Jessie Carlton a little old woman with gray hair! Won’t it be funny? I wonder if everybody will love me then as everybody loves Uncle Morris now. Why not? Everybody?—no, not everybody, for Charlie don’t love him, and our Hugh don’t love him much. That’s because they are naughty, though. Well, every good person loves Uncle Morris, because he is so good and kind; and so, if I am good and kind, when I am a little, gray old woman, everybody will love me. Ha! ha! Won’t it be nice to be called Aunt Jessie, and to be loved, oh, so well!—but I must go on with my sewing.”

Tap, tap, tap, said somebody’s knuckles on the door.

“Come in,” cried Jessie.

The door opened. Carrie Sherwood’s little, red, round, laughing face peeped in.

“O Carrie! is that you? Come in.”

Carrie tripped in, and while her eyes flashed with excitement, she said:

“O Jessie, we have found a nice slide out on the edge of the brook. It is the first time the ice has frozen hard enough to bear this fall, and we are having such a nice time. Come and see it, just for a moment.”

“A slide!” exclaimed Jessie, who dearly loved sliding. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ll go with you just to look at it. I can’t stay, you know, because I must come back and sew until twelve o’clock.”

Dropping her sewing, Jessie ran to a closet, equipped herself in cloak and hood and, taking Carrie’s hand, trotted out to see this first slide of the season.

A short distance from Glen Morris Cottage a broad, shallow brook crossed the public highway. A bridge led over the brook. Along the sides of the buttresses of this bridge, the water had flowed back for several yards over the bottom of a ditch or hollow, and being only an inch or two in depth, the sharp frosts of the early days of November had frozen it solid, though the brook itself was still babbling as if in proud defiance of the frost-king.

To this ditch Carrie led Jessie. Emily and Charlie were already there enjoying themselves finely.

“Isn’t it nice?” said Carrie when they had fairly reached the spot.

“You shan’t come on to my slide,” growled selfish Charlie.

“Nor on to mine,” cried his sister.

“You will let us slide after you, won’t you, Emily?” asked Jessie.

“No, I want this slide all to myself,” replied Emily.

“You can go down the brook and find slides for yourselves. You shan’t use ours,” cried Charlie, as shaking his fist at the two girls, he added, “I’ll lick you both if you don’t keep off.”

“Well, I never saw any thing so selfish as that before, I declare,” said Carrie Sherwood, striking the ground with her foot, and looking very angry as she spoke. “The next time I invite them to spend the day at my house they shall certainly know it.”

“Oh, never mind, never mind,” said Jessie. “We can look at them, and that will be almost as good as sliding ourselves. Perhaps they will get tired presently, and then we can slide while they rest.”

“No, we shan’t get tired either, Miss Jessie,” retorted Charlie. “We mean to slide until dinner-time.”

“And then you expect to eat dinner at my house, I suppose. Really, you are a very generous boy!” replied Carrie, in a bitter tone of voice.

“’Taint your house. It’s your father’s. He!” said the ugly boy, grinning at his young hostess.

“Well, if you were not Jessie’s cousins, you should never step inside of my house again—but here comes my brother. He’ll make you let me slide.”

Walter Sherwood now came up to the spot where his sister and Jessie stood. Carrie told him the story of the selfishness of the two cousins, and ended by saying:

“Won’t you compel them to let us slide too, Walter?”

“If he touches me, I’ll throw this big stone at him,” growled Charlie, looking very ugly and holding up a large stone, which he had just taken up from the side of the ditch. Wasn’t he a selfish little fellow?

“Please don’t touch him,” entreated Jessie. “I don’t care much about sliding, and Carrie won’t mind waiting until to-morrow. Will you, Carrie dear. The weather is so cold, there will soon be plenty of ice. Please don’t hurt Charlie, Walter.”

“Don’t be alarmed, my sweet Jessie,” replied Walter, laughing. “I don’t want to touch your sting-nettle of a cousin. I’d about as lief grapple a hedgehog. Let him and his selfish sister have their slides all to themselves. You come with me. I know where there is far better sliding than this, and I came on purpose to tell you so. Come, let us go, and leave them to enjoy their slides, if such selfish creatures can enjoy any thing.”

“Please Walter, let my cousins go with us,” whispered Jessie in Walter’s ear, as he took her hand.

“No, no, Jessie, I can’t consent to that. They won’t be a whit happier there than here, and if we do take them with us, they will only spoil our fun. I never saw two such thorns in my life. You can’t go near them, but they scratch you right off.”

“They are going home, the day after to-morrow, and I’m glad of it,” cried Carrie, as she stepped up the bank after her brother and Jessie.

“So am I,” said Walter, “and I’m thinking there will be plenty of dry eyes at Glen Morris Cottage, when they go away. What do you say to that, Jessie?”

“I’m sorry my cousins are so selfish,” replied Jessie, “but Charlie is the worst. I think if Emily was here without him, she would soon be a good girl.”

“Perhaps so. Yet I’m inclined to think you’ll see apples growing on that old hickory yonder, before she becomes good, as you call it. But let us hurry into the pasture. Here, Jessie, mount these bars?”

As he spoke, Walter leaped over the rail-fence of a pasture, and giving his hand to Jessie, she mounted the top bar.

“Now jump!” cried Walter.

Jessie did as she was told. Carrie followed. Then Walter led them along the pasture, until they struck a bend in the brook where the water having flowed over a flat basin, was very shallow. Along the edge of this basin the water was frozen hard.

“Isn’t this nice?” shouted Jessie, as she slid over the glass-like surface.

“It’s perfectly beautiful,” replied Carrie, gliding along in an opposite direction.

Walter made a slide for himself, just in front of the girls, and being all brim-full of good-nature, they enjoyed themselves finely. But there were two shadows that flashed on Jessie’s joy now and then. The first was the image of the quilt she had left on the parlor-floor; the second was her regret that her cousins were so ugly. When the former image flitted before her, a little voice in her breast whispered,

“In the chains of the little wizard again, eh?”

Then Jessie would sigh, look very sober, and pause, saying to herself, “I really must go home and sew.”

Before her purpose was fairly formed, however, Walter or Carrie would cry out, “What, getting tired already! You are not half a slider.”

“Just once more, and then I’ll go,” Jessie would say to herself. But before that one more slide was through, she would purpose to add yet another. Thus time fled until the morning was almost gone, and the quilt, the little wizard, Uncle Morris, and even the ugly cousins, were nearly forgotten, in the excitement of this pleasant sport.

This delight was, however, brought to an end by a loud scream, followed by a shrill voice crying, “Charlie! Charlie! Charlie! You’ll be drowned! Oh dear! Oh dear!”

This was followed by another scream. Walter guessed what was the matter at once. He knew that near where the cousins were sliding, the trunk of a tree formed a sort of bridge over the brook, and enabled the cow-boys to pass dry-shod in summer. When the brook was low, it was a safe enough bridge, but when it was full as it was then, it was what the boys called “a pokerish place to cross.” He surmised at once, that Charlie was frightening his sister, by attempting to walk across the brook on this rough and narrow bridge. So he told the girls, and then they all ran towards the spot from whence the cry came.

A few minutes’ run brought them in sight of Master Charlie standing erect on the tree, right over the middle of the brook. Emily was standing at the water’s edge, screaming, and begging him to come back.

“Stop your screaming, you coward, or I’ll lick you till you are dumb,” shouted the wilful boy, shaking his fist at his sister, as Walter and the two girls came up, on the other side of the brook.

Emily seeing them approach, called out to Walter, and said:

“Do make him come off that dreadful log, will you?”

“I’d like to see anybody make me come off,” said Charlie. As he spoke, he turned round to see who had come. In doing this his foot slipped, and losing his balance, he fell backwards into the brook.

The girls both screamed, for they were in great terror. Walter, however, laughed heartily, and said:

“Don’t be frightened! The water isn’t deep enough to drown the little fury. I hope it’s cold enough to cool his courage, though.”

As he spoke, Walter rolled up his pants, and then kicking off his boots, he waded into the brook and led Charlie ashore. The little fellow spluttered and shivered, but said nothing. The water had cooled his courage, and for the present, his ugliness had all subsided. They led him back to Glen Morris as quickly as possible, to get a change of clothes.

This mishap broke up their plan of dining and spending the afternoon with Carrie Sherwood. Thus the selfishness of the two cousins, again robbed both themselves and their friends of a promised pleasure. As for poor little Jessie, she drew down her face and looked very sad, as she put her quilt into the basket, when the bell rung for dinner. Sighing deeply she said half-aloud,

“Conquered again. It is no use. The little wizard is my master, and I won’t try to resist him any more. What’s the use of trying?”

“Tut, tut, tut! No use in trying, eh? Who says so?”

Jessie looked up, and her eyes met the pleasant smile of Uncle Morris, who had entered the room, in his usual quiet way, unobserved by the dispirited girl. She gave him back no answering smile, but drooping her head, stood silently before him. Seeing her sadness and knowing the cause, Uncle Morris said:

“Jessie, will you please be a school-ma’am for a moment, and let me recite my lesson to you?”

Jessie smiled a faint smile, but said nothing.

“Well, silence gives consent, I suppose. So I will recite my lesson. It is a fable and runs thus:

When Uncle Morris paused, tears stood in Jessie’s eyes, and a bright smile played round her lips. Putting her hand into his, she said:

“And I’ll try, too, Uncle. I’ll try till I conquer.”