"I think it will," said Arthur; "you have not yet attained your growth, and therefore are the more certain to be injured by its use.

"Max, my boy, I admire your father greatly, particularly his magnificent physique."

Max flushed with pleasure.

"Do you not wish to be like him in that? as tall and finely developed?"

"Yes, sir; yes, indeed! I want to be like papa in everything!"

"Then eschew tobacco, for it will stunt your growth!"

"But papa smokes," repeated Max.

"Now, but probably he did not until grown," said Arthur. "And very likely he sometimes wishes he had never contracted the habit. Now I must leave you for a time, as I have some other patients to visit."

"I told you he was an old fogy," said Ralph, as the door closed on his brother, adding with an oath, "I believe he wouldn't allow a fellow a bit of pleasure if he could help it."

Max started, and looked at Ralph with troubled eyes. "I didn't think you would swear," he said. "If you do, I--I can't be intimate with you, because my father won't allow it."

"I don't often," said Ralph, looking ashamed, "I won't again in your company."

CHAPTER XIV.

"Be sure your sin will find you out."

--_Num._ 32:33.

Gracie and Walter were in the play-room. They had been building block-houses for an hour or more, when Gracie, saying, "I'm tired, Walter, I'm going in yonder to see the things Max and Lulu are making," rose and sauntered into the work-room.

She watched the busy carvers for some minutes, then went down to Violet's apartments in search of her.

She found no one there but Agnes busied in putting away some clean clothes, fresh from the iron.

"Where's mamma?" asked the little girl.

"In de drawin'-room, Miss Gracie. Comp'ny dar."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Gracie, "I just wanted her to talk to me."

"'Spect you hab to wait till de comp'ny am gone," returned Agnes, picking up her empty clothes-basket and leaving the room.

Gracie wandered disconsolately about the rooms, wishing that the callers would go and mamma come up. Presently she paused before the bureau in Violet's dressing-room, and began fingering the pretty things on it.

She was not usually a meddlesome child, but just now was tempted to mischief from the lack of something else to interest and employ her.

She handled the articles carefully, however, and did them no damage till she came to a beautiful cut-gla.s.s bottle filled with a costly perfume of which she was extravagantly fond.

Violet had frequently given her a few drops on her handkerchief without being asked, and never refused a request for it.

Gracie, seized with a desire for it, took a clean handkerchief from a drawer and helped herself, saying half aloud, by way of quieting her conscience, "Mamma would give it to me if she was here, she always does, and I'll be careful not to break the bottle."

She was pouring from it as she spoke. Just at that instant she heard a step in the hall without, and a sound as if a hand was laid on the door-k.n.o.b.

It so startled her that the bottle slipped from her fingers, and striking the bureau as it fell, lay in fragments at her feet; its contents were spilled upon the carpet, and the air of the room was redolent of the delicious perfume.

Gracie, naturally a timid child, shrinking from everything like reproof or punishment, stood aghast at the mischief she had wrought.

"What will mamma say?" was her first thought. "Oh, I'm afraid she will be so vexed with me that she'll never love me any more!" And the tears came thick and fast, for mamma's love was very sweet to the little feeble child, who had been so long without a mother's care and tenderness.

Then arose the wish to hide her fault. Oh, if she could only replace the bottle! but that was quite impossible. Perhaps, though, there might be a way found to conceal the fact that she was the author of the mishap; she did not want to have any one else blamed for her fault, but she would like not to be suspected of it herself.

A bright thought struck her. She had seen the cat jump on that bureau a few days before and walk back and forth over it. If she (p.u.s.s.y) had been left in the room alone there that afternoon she might have done the same thing again, and knocked the bottle off upon the floor.

It would be no great harm, the little girl reasoned, trying to stifle the warnings and reproaches of conscience, if she should let p.u.s.s.y take the blame.

Mamma was kind, and wouldn't have p.u.s.s.y beaten, and p.u.s.s.y's feelings wouldn't be hurt, either, by the suspicion.

She hurried out in search of the cat, found her in the hall, pounced on her, carried her into the dressing-room, and left her there with all the doors shut, so that she could not escape, till some one going in would find the bottle broken, and think the cat had done it.

This accomplished, Gracie went back to the play-room and tried to forget her wrong-doing in the interesting employment of dressing her dolls.

Lulu presently left her carving and joined her. Max had gone for a ride.

While chasing the cat Gracie had not perceived a little woolly head thrust out of a door at the farther end of the hall, its keen black eyes closely watching her movements.

"He, he, he!" giggled the owner of the head, as Gracie secured p.u.s.s.y and hurried into the dressing-room with her, "wondah what she done dat fer!"

"What you talkin' 'bout, you sa.s.sy n.i.g.g.ah?" asked Agnes, coming up behind her on her way to Mrs. Raymond's apartments with another basket of clean clothes, just as Gracie reappeared and hurried up the stairs to the story above."

"Why, Miss Gracie done come pounce on ole Tab while she paradin' down de hall, and ketch her up an' tote her off into Miss Wilet's dressin'-room, an's lef her dar wid de do' shut on her. What for you s'pose she done do dat?"

"Oh, go 'long! I don' b'lieve Miss Gracie didn't do no sich ting!"

returned Agnes.

"She did den, I seed her," a.s.serted the little maid positively. "Mebbe she heerd de mices runnin' 'round an want ole Tab for to ketch 'em."

"You go 'long and 'tend to yo' wuk. Bet, you lazy n.i.g.g.ah," responded Agnes, pushing past her. "Miss Wilet an Miss Gracie dey'll min' dere own consarns widout none o' yo' help."

The child made no reply, but stole on tiptoe after Agnes.

Violet was coming up the front stairway, and reached the door of her dressing-room, just in advance of the girl. Opening it she exclaimed at the powerful perfume which greeted her nostrils, then catching sight of the bottle lying in fragments on the floor.

"Who can have done this?" she asked in a tone of surprise not wholly free from displeasure.

"De cat, mos' likely, Miss Wilet," said Agnes, setting down her basket and glancing at puss who was stretched comfortably on the rug before the fire.