There was a grateful household that night, when, at a late hour, they gathered about the family altar and the head returned thanks to Him who had been so merciful to them and theirs.
The happy mother held the daughter in her arms all night, while they both slept; and when the parent awoke, now and then, through the darkness, she shuddered, pressed the little one closer to her and kissed the chubby cheek, on which her former tears had not yet dried.
But Katrina Ribsam was none the less an affectionate mother when, several days later, she called Nellie to her knee and told her how wrongly she had acted in venturing on such a dangerous tramp without asking permission from her parents.
Nellie said she knew it, and wondered why it was her mother delayed the punishment so long. She was ready, and loved and respected her mother the more for administering it.
But truth compels me to say that the chastisement was given with such a gentle hand that it was hardly worth the name, and the mother herself suffered far more than did the child, who to this day is not conscious that she received anything like physical pain.
CHAPTER XII.
OMINOUS PREPARATIONS.
Happily there are few little girls in this favored land who are called upon to go through such trials as fell to the lot of little Nellie Ribsam when she was but eight years old.