He lifted her gently, and drew her to him. “I cannot tell you,” he said in moved tones, “how deeply, how sorely, I am pained to find that I cannot trust my daughter, the dear darling of my heart, as I fondly believed I could! to find that she is but an eye-servant, obeying me carefully in my presence, but disobeying my most express commands when she thinks I shall not know it.”
“O papa!” she cried, in a voice of anguish, hiding her face on his breast, while her whole frame shook with bitter, bursting sobs, “I’d rather you would give me the severest whipping than say that! Oh, please believe that it is the very first time I ever did such a thing! You know all about every time I’ve disobeyed you.”
“I do believe it,” he answered; “I have never had reason to doubt my daughter’s word.”
She lifted her face and looked up gratefully, though humbly, through her tears.
“I am unutterably thankful to be able to say that,” he went on. “And I am inclined to be the more lenient toward you, because I feel that I am partly to blame for leaving temptation in your way; especially after allowing you to hear enough about these stories of Dickens’ to greatly excite your curiosity and interest. Therefore the only punishment I shall inflict is a prohibition of your visits to this room in my absence from it. You may come in as freely as heretofore when I am here to see what you do, but at other times—until I see fit to remove the prohibition—you are not to cross the threshold.”
Elsie’s tears fell fast; she felt her father’s prohibition keenly, because it meant want of trust in her; yet she could but acknowledge that it was a far lighter punishment than she had expected or deserved.
“Dear papa, you are very, very kind not to punish me more severely,” she said, as he lifted her face, and tenderly wiped away her tears with his own fine, soft handkerchief; then, catching sight of his face, “O papa, papa! don’t look so grieved and sad!” she cried, clinging about his neck, with a fresh burst of sobs and tears.
“My child, I must look as I feel,” he sighed, holding her close to his heart. “I cannot be other than sad after such a discovery as I have made to-day.”
“Oh, all the pain ought to be mine!” she sobbed, “I ought to bear it all! I want to!”
“But you cannot,” he said. “Let that thought deter you from all future acts of disobedience. Sin always brings sorrow and suffering, and that seldom to the evil-doer alone; usually the innocent suffer with the guilty.”