I must be faithful to my God-given trust, however trying to my feelings.

Ah, there she is!" as a little figure appeared at the top of the staircase and hurried across the intervening space to the open doorway.
There she halted, trembling and with downcast eyes.

It was a minute or more before she ventured to lift them, and then it was a very timid glance she sent in her father's direction.
He was looking at her with a very grave, rather stern, countenance, and her eyes fell again, while still she shrank from approaching him.
"You are not very glad to see me, I think," he said, holding out his hand, but with no relaxing of the sternness of his expression.
"Oh, papa, yes! yes, indeed I am!" she burst out, springing to his side and putting her hand in his, "even though I suppose you are going to punish me just as you did the last time." He drew her to his knee, but without offering her the slightest caress.
"Won't you kiss me, papa ?" she asked, with a little sob.
"I will; but you are not to take it as a token of favor; only of your father's love that is never withdrawn from you, even when he is most severe in the punishment of your faults," he answered, pressing his lips again and again to forehead, cheeks, and lips.

"What have you done that you expect so severe a punishment ?" "Papa, you know, don't you ?" she said, hiding her blushing face on his breast.
"I choose to have you tell me; I want a full confession of all the wrong-doing you have been guilty of since I left you the other day." "I disobeyed you last night, papa, about taking a long walk by myself; but it was because I forgot to notice how far I was going; at least, I didn't notice," she stammered, remembering that she had wilfully refrained from so doing.
"You forgot?
forgot to pay attention to your father's commands?
did not think them of sufficient importance for you to take the trouble to impress them upon your mind.

I cannot accept that excuse as a good and sufficient one.
"And, tell me honestly, are you not, as I strongly suspect, less careful to obey your father's orders when he is away, so that you feel yourself in a measure out of his reach, than when he is close at hand ?" "Papa, you ask such hard questions," she said.
"Hard to my little daughter only because of her own wrong-doing.