"I am sorry to have occasion for what I feel constrained to say to you; but duty to my daughter requires it. I fear we have been deceived in you. A lady visiting in W— informs us that your father has always attended the Baptist church; that your mother was a member there, and that you had never made a profession of religion. She said many other things which I will not repeat. I was aware of this when I advised you not to go to lecture last night; but I was not aware, until within an hour, of the manner in which you have returned our hospitality. I was sewing in the next room, and heard my daughter question you concerning a conversation with Mr. Barton, and I agree with her that it was equally unladylike, unchristian, and ungrateful for you to converse with him as you did. Ada, I am happy to say, agrees with me that it would have been safer for her to confide in her mother, and in the desire you expressed to terminate your visit, which, after these events; must be far from agreeable to either party."
Ten o'clock the next day was the earliest hour that Alice could leave. The entire evening she busied herself in packing her trunk, but in the morning was obliged to join the family at breakfast.
Perhaps the reader can imagine her chagrin when, as they arose from table, the servant brought in an elegant bouquet to which was attached a card with the words, "Miss Ada, with the regards of Charles Barton."
Her surprise was equal to her vexation when she heard Squire Morrison read the card and taking the flowers from the servant, carry them himself to his daughter's room, with the laughing remark,—
"So that's the way the wind blows!"
Alice's parting with the Morrisons was rather constrained. Her journey home was enlivened by reflections that, though truth may sometimes be disagreeable, falsehood proves much more so. Certainly lying had in her case not tended to her happiness or prosperity. She made a half-resolve to turn over a new leaf; but she made it in her own strength, and we shall see that evil habits proved too strong for her.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
CLERICAL LIES.
ALICE SAUNDERS had always been called amiable. She certainly thought herself so; but the propensity to falsify her word prompted a line of conduct far from amiable.
Not many weeks after her return home, she was in a large party, when a lady asked her how she had enjoyed her visit to W—.