Page:Rose in Bloom (Alcott).djvu/227

 I'd put the book away, I thought I must just see how it ended, and I'm afraid I should have read it all if it had not been gone," said Rose, laying her face down on the hands she held, as humbly as a repentant child.

But Uncle Alec lifted up the bent head, and looking into the eyes that met his frankly, though either held a tear, he said, with the energy that always made his words remembered,—

"My little girl, I would face a dozen storms far worse than this to keep your soul as stainless as snow; for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity, unless we watch and pray, and never think them too trivial to be resisted."

Some people would consider Dr. Alec an over-careful man: but Rose felt that he was right; and, when she said her prayers that night, added a meek petition to be kept from yielding to three of the small temptations which beset a rich, pretty, and romantic girl,—extravagance, coquetry, and novel-reading.