Bessie

BESSIE. (CONCLUDED.)

• She was back at the house in a few minutes, calling, "Mother! mother! auntie! Who wants me?"
• "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."
• Then Bessie's mother kissed her, and told her to obey her kind aunt while she was gone.
• 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!"
• "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!"
• "I know it, auntie; but you will think me so careless!"
• "To let it rain?"
• "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.
• "You must be more careful, dear, another time," said her aunt, gently. "But come, tell me all about it."
• 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.
• "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."