"No, mamma!"
"Had you not better study them, Minnie, and leave the magazine until to-morrow?"
"Can't I finish this story first, mother?" asked she, while a slight cloud of impatience gathered on her brow.
"Does my Minnie think it right to neglect her lesson for the magazine?" asked her mother, gravely.
"No, mother, it is not," replied the child, roused by this appeal to her sense of right.
"Then what will you do, Minnie?"
"Study my lesson, mother," said she, firmly, as she resolutely closed the magazine, and handed it to her mother, adding, "Please, mother, keep it until to-morrow. It is so interesting, I am afraid I shall read it if I keep it myself."
This was a noble act in a little girl. It was an act of self-conquest which very few children would have done so readily. I like her plan of giving the magazine to her mother. It was putting a means of temptation out of the way. It was easier for her to study the lessons with the magazine out of sight, than it would have been to keep it lying on the table. Thus did Minnie triumph over an indoor trial.