One day and it was after they had been more than usually kind to each other-these cousins were standing at the top of the stone steps leading to the garden, each holding a favourite doll. "Let us go and pick gooseberries," said one. "No, I don't want to," was the reply; "I had rather go in and play at some game." Then began one of their usual disputes, just out of this slight difference, and it grew so warm that the sound of their voices reached Mrs. Clare, for it was in Rose Clare's home they generally spent their time together.

"Children! children!" she cried, "what is the matter? Can you never agree for an hour at a time? If you are resolved to be so unkind and cross, you must not be allowed to meet at all."

"It isn't my fault," said her little daughter. "It is Rose who is always disagreeable."

"It is not true, not true," and the tones of the other little voice were shrill and passionate; and then, without an instant's reflection, she gave her cousin a violent push which-as she was standing close to the flight of steps-sent her backwards, so that she fell heavily on the gravel walk below.

There was a terrible silence-something far more terrible, I can assure you, than the worst screams and cries which ever rose on the air. There lay poor White Rose motionless on the hard ground; there stood Red Rose, with frightened eyes and pale cheeks, wondering if she had killed her cousin!

"Auntie! auntie!" she managed to say at last, but her voice was not in the least like her own, and she could hardly get the words out, "Auntie, come !"

What a sight for a mother's eyes that was -her little daughter lying as still and senseless as if her fall had killed her! Quickly as possible she was carried into the house, and laid on a sofa, while a servant was despatched in haste for the nearest doctor; but no one seemed even to have a thought for Rose Dunn, no one so much as understood yet what she had to do with the accident. Only one question the frightened child dared to make: "Is White Rose dead, Aunt Clare?" and when she heard, "Not dead, but very, very much hurt, I am afraid," she crept silently away feeling more miserable than she had been before during the whole of her past young life.

"Did any one see me?" she kept saying to

herself. "Will they know I pushed her? Oh dear, I think I shall run away and hide myself. I can't stay here, and I am afraid to go in to our house, and tell my mother what has happened."

She walked to the hall door as she was thinking this-some one in the confusion had left it open. Next moment, little Rose Dunn had taken up her hat, and still clasping her doll tightly in her arms, she ran fleetly down the garden before the house; and instead of entering the adjoining gate, which was the gate of her own home, she turned the other way, not knowing exactly where she was going-only that she wanted no one to see her, no one to ask any questions just then!

Two minutes later, her own mother came in to Mrs. Clare's house, having heard news of the accident; and you may imagine her alarm when presently it appeared that little Red Rose could not be found anywhere indoors or outdoors.

It had been a hot parching summer's day; but now a breeze was springing up, and all the flagging flowers in the beds of the cottage gardens were lifting their heads anew; the sky was all rose-red tints, and even the pond,

which Rose Dunn passed at the beginning of the village, was red from the sunny reflection above it. But she had no thought of the loveliness of the world as she kept running, running on; poor little girl, she did not quite understand that go where we may we can never escape God's eye, never free ourselves from the reproachful voice of an accusing

conscience.

I have no story of a lost child to relate to you, my readers; for in a small country town such as that wherein the Dunns and Clares lived, every one is too well known to make escape very possible. I do not know how far Red Rose's feet and folly might have carried her, to be sure; but I am glad for her own sake to say that before she had left the last of the cottages behind, before she had passed by many yards the pond on the green, she heard a familiar voice calling her name, and looking up saw her own father.

18

CHAPTER II.

The Weight of a Secret.

y dear child, what are you doing here?" was naturally Mr. Dunn's first exclamation. "Alone, and running so fast,

and only your garden hat on! Does mamma know you are here?" "N-o," said the little girl, hanging down her head over the heavy wax doll, which had begun to make her arm ache by this time.

Then why are you out so far from home? Where are you going, what's happened?" and Mr. Dunn looked more puzzled than before.

"I-was-so-frightened," sobbed Rose, for she could not keep back her tears any longer. "White Rose-fell-down."

The words came slowly, and with a pause between, which added to her father's difficulty in understanding them. "If White Rose fell down, and you were frightened," he said, "I