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“Mamma! mamma! dear mamma!” cried Favoretta, running into the hall, and stopping Mrs. Harcourt, who was dressed, and going out to dinner, “do come into the parlour, to look at my basket, my beautiful basket, that I am making all myself.”

“And do, mother, or some of ye, come out into the garden, and see the bed that I’ve dug, with my own hands, for my radishes–I’m as hot as fire, I know,” said Herbert, pushing his hat back from his forehead.

“Oh! don’t come near me with the watering-pot in your hand,” said Mrs. Harcourt, shrinking back, and looking at Herbert’s hands, which were not as white as her own.

“The carriage is but just come to the door, ma’am,” said Isabella, who next appeared in the hall; “I only want you for one instant, to show you something that is to hang up in your dressing-room, when I have finished it, mamma; it is really beautiful.”

“Well, don’t keep me long,” said Mrs. Harcourt, “for, indeed, I am too late already.”

“Oh, no! indeed you will not be too late, mamma–only look at my basket,” said Favoretta, gently pulling her mother by the hand into the parlour.–Isabella pointed to her silk globe, which was suspended in the window, and, taking up her camel-hair pencil, cried, “Only look, ma’am, how nicely I have traced the Rhine, the Po, the Elbe, and the Danube; you see I have not finished Europe; it will be quite another looking thing, when Asia, Africa, and America are done, and when the colours are quite dry.”

“Now, Isabella, pray let her look at my basket,” cried the eager Favoretta, holding up the scarcely begun basket–“I will do a row, to show you how it is done;” and the little girl, with busy fingers, began to weave. The ingenious and delicate appearance of the work, and the happy countenance of the little workwoman, fixed the mother’s pleased attention, and she, for a moment, forgot that her carriage was waiting.

“The carriage is at the door, ma’am,” said the footman.

“I must be gone!” cried Mrs. Harcourt, starting from her reverie. “What am I doing here? I ought to have been away this half-hour–Matilda!–why is not she amongst you?”

Matilda, apart from the busy company, was reading with so much earnestness, that her mother called twice before she looked up.

“How happy you all look,” continued Mrs. Harcourt; “and I am going to one of those terrible great dinners–I shan’t eat one morsel; then cards all night, which I hate as much as you do, Isabella–pity me, Mad. de Rosier!–Good bye, happy creatures!”–and with some real and some affected reluctance, Mrs. Harcourt departed.

It is easy to make children happy, for one evening, with new toys and new employments; but the difficulty is to continue the pleasure of occupation after it has lost its novelty: the power of habit may well supply the place of the charm of novelty. Mad. de Rosier exerted herself, for some weeks, to invent occupations for her pupils, that she might induce in their minds a love for industry; and when they had tasted the pleasure, and formed the habit of doing something, she now and then suffered them to experience the misery of having nothing to do. The state of ennui, when contrasted with that of pleasurable mental or bodily activity, becomes odious and insupportable to children.

Our readers must have remarked that Herbert, when he seized upon the radish-seeds in the rational toy-shop, had not then learned just notions of the nature of property. Mad. de Rosier did not, like Mrs. Grace, repeat ineffectually, fifty times a day–“Master Herbert, don’t touch that!” “Master Herbert, for shame!” “Let that alone, sir!” “Master Herbert, how dare you, sir!” but she prudently began by putting forbidden goods entirely out of his reach: thus she, at least, prevented the necessity for perpetual, irritating prohibitions, and diminished with the temptation the desire to disobey; she gave him some things for his own use, and scrupulously refrained from encroaching upon his property: Isabella and Matilda followed her example, in this respect, and thus practically explained to Herbert the meaning of the words mine and yours. He was extremely desirous of going with Mad. de Rosier to different shops, but she coolly answered his entreaties by observing, “that she could not venture to take him into any one’s house, till she was sure that he would not meddle with what was not his own.” Herbert now felt the inconvenience of his lawless habits: to enjoy the pleasures, he perceived that it was necessary to submit to the duties of society; and he began to respect ” the rights of things and persons [1].” When his new sense of right and wrong had been sufficiently exercised at home, Mad. de Rosier ventured to expose him to more dangerous trials abroad; she took him to a carpenter’s workshop, and though the saw, the hammer, the chisel, the plane, and the vice, assailed him in various forms of temptation, his powers of forbearance came off victorious.