Lesson:

1. She was back at the house in a few minutes, calling, 'Mother! mother! auntie! Who wants me?'


2. 'I, dear,' said her mother. 'I am going away for a long visit, and if you had not come at once, I could not have said good-by to my little girl.'


3. Then Bessie's mother kissed her, and told her to obey her kind aunt while she was gone.


4. The next morning, Bessie waked to find it raining hard. She went into her aunt's room with a very sad face. 'O auntie! this old rain!'


5, 'This new, fresh, beautiful rain, Bessie! How it will make our flowers grow, and what a good time we can have together in the house!'


6. 'I know it, auntie; but you will think me so careless!'


7. 'To let it rain?'


8. 'No; don't laugh, Aunt Annie; to leave your nice basket out of doors all night; and now it will be soaked and ruined in this--this--beautiful rain.' Bessie did not look as if the beautiful rain made her very happy.


9. 'You must be more careful, dear, another time,' said her aunt, gently. 'But come, tell me all about it.'


10. So Bessie crept very close to her auntie's side, and told her of her happy time the day before; of the squirrel, and the toad, and how the basket rolled away down the hill; and then how the bell rang, and she could not stop to find the basket.


11. 'And you did quite right,' said her aunt. 'If you had stopped, your mother must have waited a whole day, or else gone without seeing you. When I write, I will tell her how obedient you were, and that will please her more than anything else I can say.'