 from answering for fear of wounding me. You can scarcely do that more than you have done already."

Caroline tried to speak, but she could only sob forth, that she could not recall one instance, in which her mother had been more displeased with her than her conduct merited. Acknowledging, but almost inarticulately, that she had sometimes fancied that she had remained longer cold with her than with Ellen, after the committal of a fault—and that—(she stopped).

"Go on, Caroline."

"I could not feel my faults such heavy ones as Ellen's."

"They are of equal, if not greater weight than your cousin's, Caroline. You have been, from your earliest infancy, the object of the most tender and devoted care to your father and myself. Miss Harcourt has followed out our plans; you have never been exposed to any temptation, not even that of casual bad example. Ellen, till she became mine, encountered neglect, harshness, all that could not fail in such a character to engender the faults she has. You can not compare yourself with her, for, had you been situated as she was, I fear you would have had still heavier failings."

"I should never have told untruths," exclaimed Caroline with returning temper.

"Perhaps not, for some persons are so physically constituted that they do not know what fear is; and harshness would harden, not terrify and crush, as with such dispositions as Ellen's. But Caroline, when temper gains dominion over you, as it has done to-day, do you always think and utter nothing but the truth?"

Caroline turned from that penetrating look and burst into tears. Few as the words were, they seemed to flash light into the very inmost recesses of her heart, and tell her that in moments of uncontrolled temper, in her brooding fancies, she really did forfeit the truth, on adherence to which she so prided herself; and that there was no excuse for her in the idea that she did not know what she said or did—for why had religion and reason been so carefully implanted within her, but to enable her to subdue the evil temper, ere it acquired such fearful dominion.

"Perhaps you have never thought of this before, Caroline," resumed Mrs. Hamilton, and her tone was not quite so cold; "but think of it in future, and it may help you to conquer yourself. Remember, words can never be recalled, and that, though you may have lost such command over yourself, as
