The school-girls' treasury

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Louisa writhed and fidgetted. "I only meant to be gone a minute. It was not as if I had gone away to stay."

"That makes no difference, Louisa. You have no more right to sin for a minute than you have to sin for an hour, or a day. Besides your minutes never are minutes. I know how it was with your music when you used to come to our house to practise. You would take up a story-book for just a minute, and half your practise hour would be gone before you had touched the piano. The fact is that you cannot wilfully do wrong for 'just a minute.' You might just as well set the house on fire and expect it to burn 'just a minute.' What would you think of a sentinel in war time who should admit the enemy into the camp to stay 'just a minute.' When you commit a wilful sin, you make yourself the servant of sin."

"I don't see any great sin in just going to the door a minute!" said Louisa.

"The sin was not in going to the door, but in breaking your promise, as you know perfectly well," said Aunt Wentworth. "I do not at all wonder that your mother is angry with you, Louisa. You not only do not try to get the better of your fault, but you justify yourself in it: and I tell you, in all seriousness, that it is a fault which will ruin your character if you do not try to break yourself of it."

"It has come to that now that nobody can trust you to do the least thing. If you are sent on an errand, there is no certainty of your being in time. If you are set about any piece of work, however necessary, you are more likely than not to neglect it and to disappoint those who depend on you. You are losing your standing in school, instead of gaining, and you are a perpetual worry and discomfort to all around you: and all because of this miserable habit of indulging yourself 'just a minute' in doing what you know to be wrong. As I said, I do not wonder that your mother is displeased, or that she punishes you. The matter is growing very serious, and I tell you, my child, unless you repent and amend in time, your life will be a miserable failure, not only in this world but in that which is to come."

Aunt Wentworth was a very old lady, and one to whom all the family looked up with great respect. She very seldom reproved the children of her nieces, for she was one who understood to perfection the difficult art of minding her own business, and she was very indulgent and kind to young people.

Louisa had been cherishing a secret hope that Aunt Wentworth would intercede with her mother, and, as she said, "beg her off." But Aunt Wentworth had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She knew how serious Louisa's fault was, and that her mother would never have treated her so severely for one single instance of forgetfulness.

For some time after the birthday party, Louisa was more careful. She found it very unpleasant to be without spending money week after week, especially as Aunt Wentworth did not fill up her purse, as sometimes happened, when she went to visit the old lady.

There was another thing which annoyed her even more, and that was the fact that nobody asked her to do anything or accepted her services when offered. She felt that she was not trusted, and this was a worse punishment even than the loss of her pocket-money. She really tried hard to overcome her faults, and she succeeded so well that by-and-by she found herself once more trusted to do errands and other services by her mother and sisters.

But just here it was that Louisa made a great mistake. She thought because she had gained a few victories over her enemy that she was safe, and might relax her guard. She left off watching and praying against her faults, and presently she began to indulge in those "just a minute" readings of story-books and magazines when she ought to have been dressing, or reading her Bible, or learning her lessons—those "just a minute" loiterings, which made her late for school, and those "just a minute" longer morning naps which left her no time to ask God's blessing upon the duties and events of the day.