"Poor child," said her teacher, "I ought to have guarded you from such influences; but I never knew you were intimate."
"Alice told me not to speak to her when others were by. She was afraid you would suspect about Ned," sobbed the weeping girl. "Oh, how sorry my mother will feel! Do you think Ned is hurt so he will die?"
"No, Ella; I do not imagine either he or Miss Saunders are in any immediate danger; but I am more shocked than I can tell you at what I have heard. I hope, dear child, you will learn by this sad experience how dangerous it is to trifle with God's commands. Solomon says, 'A lying tongue is but for a moment.' Sooner or later a liar will be put to confusion, and his words, even though he speak the truth, be distrusted."
"My mother taught me to tell the truth," faltered Ella, her lip quivering; "and I don't believe Ned ever told lies till he knew Alice."
The next morning, when the doctor came, he told her that Alice was far more comfortable than his other patient, who had struck his head against a stone, and had been delirious all night. On first reaching home, however, he had frankly confessed to his teacher his sorrow at having broken the rules of the school, taking all the blame of the accident on himself, saying he was struck with the beauty of Ella's friend, and had repeatedly invited her to ride with him, which she had constantly refused until the occasion when this dreadful accident occurred.
From one of his classmates, the doctor learned that he confessed to have hired the buggy professedly to carry his sister to ride, but always intending to take Alice, and thought the accident a just punishment for the deception he had practised toward his teacher. They rode about ten miles to a neighboring town, and were returning to the place where Miss Saunders wished to alight, when the horse took fright and ran backward against a stone wall, upsetting the buggy and throwing them both to the ground.
During the night, his thoughts ran upon his mother, who he seemed to imagine was standing over him, and whom, in the most heartrending terms, he implored to forgive him.
The first moment of returning consciousness, he begged the nurse to ask his teacher to come to his bedside, and when Dr. Bowles instantly complied, entreated that his mother might not hear of his sad conduct until he could write and confess it to her.
"I am her only boy," he said, feebly putting his hot hand on the doctor's, "and it will not hurt her so much if she hears it from me."
Dr. Bowles readily promised this, offering to send for Mrs. Morris if he wished, only stating that he had met with an accident.