he was going to ride.

Just then, his father spoke to him from the window, and called him in.

He and Lucy went in together into the parlor.

"Rollo," said his father, "did you know you were doing very wrong?"

Rollo felt a little guilty, but he said rather faintly, "No, sir, I was
not doing any thing."

"You are committing a great many sins, all at once."

Rollo was silent. He knew his father meant sins of the heart.

"Your heart is in a very wicked state. You are under the dominion of
some of the worst of feelings; you are self-conceited, ungrateful,
undutiful, unjust, selfish, and," he added in a lower and more solemn
tone, "even impious."

Rollo thought that these were heavy charges to bring upon him; but his
father spoke calmly and kindly, and he knew that he could easily show
that what he said was true.

"You are _self-conceited_--vainly imagining that you, a little boy of
seven years old, can judge better than your father and mother, and
obstinately persisting in your opinion that it is not going to rain,
when the rain has actually commenced, and is falling faster and faster.
You are _ungrateful_, to speak reproachfully of me, and give me pain, by
your ill-will, when I have been planning this excursion, in a great