into tears; "I thought you were going to leave me there all night."

"Did you? and were you afraid?"

"No, papa, not _afraid_, because I know you would be sleeping in the next
room; and besides, God could take care of me as well in the closet as
anywhere else. Is it getting night, papa, or morning?"

"It is beginning to grow dark," he said. "But tell me why you cried, if
you were not afraid."

"Partly because I was uncomfortable, papa, but more because I was sorry
I had been naughty, and displeased you, and afraid that I can never learn
to be good."

"It is very strange," he remarked, "that you cannot learn not to ask to
do what I have forbidden. I shall have to punish you every time you do
it; for you _must_ learn that no _means no_, and that you are never to
coax or tease after papa has once said it. I love my little girl very
dearly, and want to do all I can to make her happy, but I must have her
entirely submissive and obedient to me. But stop crying now," he added,
wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. "Kiss me, and tell me you are
going to be a good girl, and I will forgive you this time."

"I will try, papa," she said, holding up her face for the kiss; "and I
would not have asked to play that, but the children begged me so, and
I thought you only said I mustn't, because you didn't want me to sit on
the floor; and we were going to try it on the table."

"Did I give that reason?" he asked gravely.