"What had you done or said that she should think herself entitled to an apology?"
Rosie replied with a truthful account of the scene of the day before in the boy's work-room, excusing her part of it by an allusion to "Lulu's fearful temper."
"Are you quite sure, Rosie, that when you rouse it by exasperating remarks you do not share the sin?" asked her mother with a grieved, troubled look.
"No, mamma, I'm afraid I do," acknowledged Rosie, frankly.
"Satan is called the tempter," Elsie went on, "and I fear that you are doing his work when you wilfully tempt another to sin."
"Oh, mamma," cried Rosie, looking shocked, "I never thought of that. I don't want to be his servant, doing his work; I will try never to tempt any one to wrong-doing again."
"I am glad to hear you say that," said her mother. "And now that you are conscious of having harmed Lulu, are you not willing to do what lies in your power to repair the mischief—to pay the debt she thinks you owe her?"
Rosie's head drooped and her cheeks crimsoned. "Mamma, you are asking a hard thing of me," she said in a low, unwilling tone. "If you order me, of course I know I must obey; but I'd rather do almost anything else than apologize to Lulu."
"I wish you to do it of your own free will and from sense of duty, not because my commands are laid upon you," Elsie answered. "Is it not the noblest course of action I am urging upon you? Is it any less mean to refuse to meet such an obligation than a moneyed one?—a thing of which I am sure you would be heartily ashamed to be guilty."
"Certainly I should, mamma; one might as well steal as refuse to pay what one honestly owes; unless it be entirely out of one's power."