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6 LEAST SAID IS SOONEST MENDED.'

OT done looking at
Lotty?' said Ned
tone to his sister.
bell says you're a

yourself in the glass yet, Edmund in a tantalizing No wonder Jane Campconceited, silly little thing; you might have been ready half an hour ago, I'm sure.'

'Jane Campbell!' said Lotty, turning to her brother, with a face scarlet with rage, and eyes glaring with passion.

Did she say that ?-she who always pre

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tends to be my friend? I'll give her a piece of my mind, that I will, the very first time I see her. There she is, I declare, playing on the green. I'll go right off this very minute, and tell her she is a nasty, deceitful monkey;' and so saying, Lotty darted towards the door, unheeding Ned's 'Don't, Lotty, don't, I was only joking; Jane didn't mean-' But the angry child would listen to no explanation, and ran off without allowing Ned to finish his sentence. In her haste she had failed to observe that her cousin Charles had entered the room during the conversation; and now, when she was endeavouring to make her escape, she found herself caught in his arms.

'Stop, Lotty,' he said, 'I would not go near Jane just now, if I were you. Wait till we find out the truth of the matter, or, at all events, till you are in a quieter frame of mind.'

But Lotty was not to be reasoned with just then; so, freeing herself from her cousin's hold, she rushed off, saying, 'Oh, but I will go, and tell her what I think of her behaviour that I will.'

'Lotty! Lotty!' called her cousin, as he looked after her, ' mind what you're doing; remember "Least said is soonest mended."

Lotty heard the words quite distinctly, and in her heart wished that any one rather than Cousin Charles had seen her just then; but she did not turn back, though his voice twice called her in a tone of authority to do so. On she went to the green; and then a scene ensued, on the particulars of which we will not dwell. Suffice it to say that, after many angry words chiefly on Lotty's side, the two children, who from their earliest infancy had been constant companions, parted, each resolved to have nothing more to do with the other: Jane, with a heart wounded by the unjust accusation of her friend; Lotty discontented and vexed with herself for all she had said, wishing ere she reached home that she could unsay some of the hasty words she had spoken. She slipped into the house, and, contriving to evade both Ned and Cousin Charles, moped sullenly all afternoon.

Stories to Explain them.

205

At tea-time Mr. Edmund came in hastily. 'I have been detained late,' he said; but the fact is, when I was nearly home I met Mr. Campbell, who was going for the doctor to little Johnnie, and as I wished to speak to him, I turned and went so far back with him. The boy is very ill, and Mr. Campbell fears it is scarlet fever; so, children, you had better not play with the Campbells till it is found out.'

'Lotty,' said her mother, 'I saw you speaking to Jane on the green; did she say anything to you about her little brother's illness ?'

'No,' said Lotty, 'she did not mention him; we were talking about other things.' As Lotty spoke, her face and neck flushed scarlet on seeing Cousin Charles's eyes fixed gravely on her.

'Poor Jane!' continued Mrs. Edmund; 'I hope she won't take the fever; she looks so fragile, and, poor child she has no mother to nurse her. Johnnie is so little, he will be well off with Jenny to take care of him; and, besides, he can't remember his mother. But with Jane it's different; she was very much attached to her mother, and is a child who loves kind words and gentle caresses.'

After the tea was over, Lotty slipped away from the rest of the party,-a weary, dissatisfied feeling in her mind, and sitting down in a corner of the schoolroom, she covered her face with her hands, and cried; at first, she could scarcely tell why. She feared to give a form to the sudden panic which had struck into her heart, when her father told of Johnnie's illness; but as she gazed in the grey twilight on the green, where she and Jane had so lately stood, she wished, oh! so vainly now, that she had not spoken as she had done.

Presently a step was heard, the door opened, and raising her head, Lotty saw Cousin Charles standing before her. 'Lotty,' he said gently, but firmly, 'tell me what passed between you and Jane Campbell to-day, Were the angry words spoken ?'

206

Wise Sayings, and

'Yes, oh yes!' poor Lotty had to confess with many sobs; they had been; many, many of them far worse than Cousin Charles could imagine; and Jane had been so vexed, and angry as well. And now they might never meet again. Jane would be sure to take the fever, and perhaps die; and, besides, what had been said could. never be unsaid. Oh! if she had only obeyed her cousin, and turned back, and believed that 'Least said is soonest mended;' for now, wish it ever so much, she could not make matters better.

Very kindly Cousin Charles spoke to her of her fault. 'Oh, Lotty!' he said, 'had you sought in truth the Saviour's help, the angry temper and the hasty words would alike have been subdued. "The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity," and it often pierces like a sword. 'Tis the grace of God alone that can tame it. I fear you have brought a heavy punishment on yourself, by not having "set a watch on the door of your lips." Lotty, you have grieved me much. I had hoped you were learning to control your hasty temper. You should have examined the truth of Ned's foolish words before you believed them; you know he often speaks thoughtlessly; and had it not been that your self-love was piqued, you would have been the first to deny the possibility of your friend speaking so of you. But the conscious feeling that in very truth she might have said that of you, enraged you doubly; was it not so, Lotty?'

Yes, perhaps it was. But now, what could she do to make Jane believe that the hard things she had said were not really meant, but said in a passion? Could she write? No; Cousin Charles advised her not to do so at present; her parents wished no unnecessary intercourse with the Campbells; so that all she could do was to wait. He knew she would suffer, he could not wish it otherwise. 'Be sure your sin will find you out, even in this world.' Fain would Cousin Charles have soothed the child; but he thought it best not. Her temper was a very hasty one, and it needed correction to subdue it. Friends had

hitherto failed in the work; now it was as if the Lord had Himself undertaken to do so, and it was best to leave it in His hands.

The days passed, lessons were carried on as usual, but still Lotty looked grave, graver even than at first; for Ned, who blamed himself much for his share in the matter, had told her that all he had to go on was, that one day when playing with a companion, he had said, half in joke, that all girls spent half their time looking at themselves in the glass; upon which Willie Brown had laughed, and said, 'Not all girls; perhaps your sister Lotty may; but then she's just the sort of girl Jane Campbell would call a silly, conceited thing;' and that was all. She did not spend half her time before the glass; and Jane Campbell had not really called her silly and conceited; if any one had done so, it was Willie Brown, and he was a rude boy whose opinion she did not heed. Oh Ned! Ned! The tongue is a little member, but it doeth much evil;' and it is very true

'That evil is wrought by want of thought
As much as by want of heart.'

Mr. and Mrs. Edmund observed Lotty's unwonted gravity; but, supposing it was some disagreement with Cousin Charles in the schoolroom, made no remark on it.

It was nearly a fortnight after Lotty's outbreak in the green, that the news was brought, that, though little Johnnie was well again, Jane Campbell had caught the fever, and was seriously ill. Lotty's work fell from her hand as she listened, and it was with real pity that Cousin Charles noticed the death-like pallor that spread over her face. What she feared had come to pass. Jane was very ill and might die, and the angry words could never be recalled-never; and she would never hear her again call her friend. Oh! it was hard to bear.

The next few days passed slowly; to Lotty they seemed as years; but the lesson she learned during them was one the fruit of which was seen during the whole of her life.

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