"I am very sorry, indeed, to hear all this, Ella," said Miss Layton. "You have really been very naughty. In the first place, you ought not to have climbed the fence; that was very wrong, because you knew that your aunt had forbidden it."
"But Lucy wanted the flowers, and couldn't wait for me to go round to the gate. What could I do, Miss Layton?"
"It would have been much better to let Lucy go without the flowers than to disobey your aunt."
"But, Miss Layton, she always scolds me! I can never please her, and I don't mean to try any more."
"O Ella, Ella! is this the end of all your good resolutions? Who is it that says, 'Honour thy father and thy mother?'"
"But aunt Prudence isn't my mother," said Ella.
"No, my dear, but she occupies the place of a parent to you, and the spirit of the command requires you to obey her."
"I can't please her, Miss Layton. I've tried and tried and tried, and what's the use of trying any more?"
"Ah, Ella, if you had a new heart, if you were a child of God, you would try to do right that you might please him; and you would not give up in despair, though no one else noticed your efforts, or looked upon you with approval. I am afraid, my child, that you love praise too well; that you 'love the praise of men more than the praise of God.'"
"I don't like to mind aunt Prudence! I wish I didn't have to!"