Chapter Four

"Will Miss Ellen tell?" Gracie whispered.

"Course she'll tell," said Lizzie.

"And what will they do to us?" asked Gracie, in another whisper.

"Oh, I don't know," said Lizzie. "I dasn't think."

"I hear somebody coming. Maybe it's papa," said Bobby.

They were all on their feet in an instant, scampering farther away from home; and when they had come to the third corner they went around it and sat down on the grass again.

After a while they heard somebody else coming, and they jumped up and ran a little farther and went around a corner and sat down on the grass.

These children felt so guilty that they felt afraid, too; and they could not hear a footstep without thinking that the punishment they deserved was coming after them.

Every child who has been naughty knows what it is to be afraid. It is only when little children are pleasing their dear Father in heaven, and can feel that he is looking down on them with love, and keeping them safe from all harm because they are good, that they can be quite without fear.

Lizzie and Gracie and Bobby would have given a great deal to be good children who had nothing to fear in the whole world, as they lay there under the tree far from home, with their feet aching, a big lump in each of their throats, and the tears just ready to stream down their cheeks, if they would let them.

"What's that?" said Bobby; and as they all listened they heard a deep growling noise that came out of the sky.

"It's thunder!" cried Gracie. "Oh, come!"

Without stopping to think of anything, without once remembering their fear of punishment, Lizzie and Gracie took Bobby between them and ran towards home. They forgot their tired feet. They forgot that dreadful Miss Ellen, and papa's anger. All they could think of now was how the thunder growled like a bear behind the clouds; how the sharp lightning flashed across the sky, and how they were away from home and mamma.

Soon the gate was in sight, then dear little Swallows' Nest; then dear little mamma herself, smiling out of the window.

"I am so glad you got in before the rain came," she said, running out to meet them. "You oughtn't to leave the yard without permission, dears. Ask mamma the next time you want to go."

Not a word about their naughtiness; not one angry look; no scolding; no punishment for Lizzie and Bobby and Gracie. Then don't you think they felt ashamed? Oh, far more ashamed than if they had been treated just as badly as they deserved.

They seemed to have no right to all the kindness and petting they received.

They were hardly in the house when the rain came pouring down.

The children hung around the front door and felt like keeping just as far from the parlor as possible. But presently mamma went into the parlor, and then a great big flash of lightning came. Never mind Miss Ellen then! They must cling to mamma when there was lightning abroad. So they scampered into the parlor and hid their heads in her skirts.

"For shame, you little cowards," said mamma laughing.

Miss Ellen sat by the window watching the storm. She looked just the same as if she hadn't heard the children calling her names. Papa was his own kind self, and Mrs. Webster sait knitting with quite a smile on her face.

The children concluded that Miss Ellen had not told. But they only felt all the more ashamed. With the thunder and lightning and their bad deeds to think of, and every one treating them so kindly, they were very unhappy.

To be continued ...

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