"And yet," said Adelaide, "I must say I sometimes think that, as
papa says, there is something mean-spirited and cowardly in always
giving up to other people."

"It would indeed be cowardly and wrong to give up
_principle_," replied Rose, "but surely it is noble and
generous to give up our own wishes to another, where no principle
is involved."

"Certainly, you are right," said Adelaide, musingly. "And now I
recollect that, readily as Elsie gives up her own wishes to others
on ordinary occasions, I have never known her to sacrifice
principle; but, on the contrary, she has several times made mamma
excessively angry by refusing to romp and play with Enna on the
Sabbath, or to deceive papa when questioned with regard to some of
Arthur's misdeeds; yet she has often borne the blame of his
faults, when she might have escaped by telling of him. Elsie is
certainly very different from any of the rest of us, and if it is
piety that makes her what she is, I think piety is a very lovely
thing."

Elsie's mornings were spent in the school-room; in the afternoon
she walked, or rode out, sometimes in company with her young
uncles and aunts, and sometimes alone, a negro boy following at a
respectful distance, as a protector. In the evening there was
almost always company in the parlor, and she found it pleasanter
to sit beside the bright wood-fire in her own room, with her fond
old nurse for a companion, than to stay there, or with the younger
ones in the sitting-room or nursery. If she had no lesson to
learn, she usually read aloud to Chloe, as she sat knitting by the