“I have no doubt that you have some affection for me,” he said, “but—”
“O papa, a great, great deal!” she interrupted, “I’m so angry with myself for being so disobedient and disrespectful to you, that I want you to punish me just as hard as you can. Won’t you? and then forgive me, and love me again?”
“My dear child,” he said, “I have not ceased to love you, very far from it; you are dearer to me than words can tell. But I can not of course pass over lightly so flagrant an act of disobedience as you were guilty of to-day. I must punish you, and I have decided that your punishment shall be that Fairy shall be taken from you for a week.”
“A week, papa? I was afraid you would never give her back to me; and I don’t deserve that you should.”
“It grieves me to deprive you of her for even that length of time,” he said, “and if you are really as penitent as you seem, to lose her for a week will, I think, be sufficient punishment.”
“Papa, I’m really discouraged with myself,” she sighed. “I thought I’d learned to be pretty good, so that I would never be disobedient again, but now I have been.”
“Do not allow yourself to be discouraged in a way that will lead you to give up trying to improve,” he said, “but let your failures lead you to try all the harder, and to pray more earnestly and constantly to God for help. Probably your failure was caused by your having grown too confident that you were really reformed and so relaxing your efforts and your watchfulness.”
“Aren’t you quite discouraged about trying to make me a good girl, papa?” she asked.
“No; I know too well that the battle with our fallen nature is a long and hard one, and have had too many slips and falls myself to expect you to gain the victory at once. Also, I believe the promise, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ I must go on teaching and training you, praying to God for wisdom, and for a blessing upon my efforts, trying also to set you a good example, and God will surely at length fulfill his promise to me.”
“Papa, is making me do without Fairy for a while the only punishment you are going to give me?”