when it speaks to us in our own hearts--in ourselves. It would be a very
poor sort of being good or obeying if it was only so long as somebody
else was beside us telling us what to do and looking to see that we did
it."

"Yes," said the two little voices together, lower and still more solemn.

"As, for instance, this morning if, just because Nurse was not with you,
you had done anything you would not have done had she been there," said
Grandmamma, looking keenly at the two flushed faces.

Another--"Yes, Grandmamma."

"Or," went on the old lady, speaking more slowly, "a worse kind of
disobeying--the telling what is not really true; lots of people, big as
well as little, do that, and sometimes they try to make _themselves_
think, by all sorts of twistings and turnings, that they have not done
so when their own hearts know they _have_. For the voice inside us is
_very_ hard to silence or deceive--I think sometimes indeed it _never_
is silenced, but that our ears grow deaf to it--that we make them so.
But this is very grave talk for you, my dear children--too grave and
difficult perhaps. I am getting so old that I suppose I sometimes forget
how very young you are! And here come your own little cups and saucers,
nicely rinsed out, and waiting to be wiped dry."

"Thank you, Grandmamma," said Duke.

"Fank you, Grandmamma," said Pamela.

And the two small pairs of hands set to work carefully at their daily