“Never try to conceal anything, Lillie,” said Miss Lane; “your punishment is sure to come sooner or later. Your sin will find you out in some way. God allows not the slightest wrong-doing to pass unpunished—and a hidden fault is like poison in the soul, blackening and corrupting it. Little children can hide but little from those who are older. I guessed much from your manner, and Sallie told me you and Mary had been in my room, when I asked her if she knew anything of the accident.”
“Then what could you have thought of me, Miss Lane!”
“I was very much disappointed in you, my dear, I will tell you frankly. I thought you incapable of concealment or deceit.”
“Oh, Miss Lane, I have been so unhappy. I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid, and I really thought it very mean to go into your room without permission.”
“But you listened to the tempter twice, my dear, and you see what the consequences have been. If you had resisted the first time, it would not have been so easy to fall the second. Every time we yield, we lose one portion of strength, and by familiarity with sin, our horror of it passes quickly away. There might come a time, my dear, when a deceitful, disobedient action would not trouble your conscience at all.”
“Oh, Miss Lane! But, indeed, there are so many things to make me naughty, and Jennie was so cross and overbearing that I would go.”
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him,” was the answer, as Miss Lane, kissing the little penitent, went out and left her with God.