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“The little huzzy! It’s well for her that I did not catch her at it!”

“It is well indeed, Sarah, for you would, by your angry and unjust punishment, have done the little creature a serious injury. Did you ever explain to her the use of your work-basket and the various things in it, and make her comprehend how necessary it was to you to have every thing in order there, just as you placed it?”

“Gracious, William! Do you think I haven’t something else to do besides wasting time in explaining to children the use of every thing in my work-basket? What good would it do, I wonder?”

“It would do a great deal of good, Sarah, you may rely upon it, and be a great saving of time into the bargain; for if you made your children properly comprehend the use of every thing around them, and how their meddling with certain things was wrong, because it would incommode you, you would find them far less disposed than now to put their hands into wrong places. Try it.”

“Nonsense! I wonder if I haven’t been trying all my life to make them understand that they were not to meddle with things that didn’t belong to them! And what good has it done?”

“Very little, I must own; for I never saw children who had less regard to what their mother says than yours have.”

This touched Mrs. Elder a little. She didn’t mind animadverting upon the defects of her children, but was ready to stand up in their defence whenever any one else found fault with them.

“I reckon they are not the worst children in the world,” she replied, rather warmly.

“I should be sorry if they were. But they are not the best either, by a long way, although naturally as good children as are seen anywhere. It is your bad management that is spoiling them.”

“My management!”

“Frankly, Sarah, I am compelled to affirm that it is. I have been in your house, now, for three or four months, and must say that I am surprised that your children are as good as they are. Don’t be angry! Don’t be fretted with me as you are with every thing in them that doesn’t please you. I am old enough to hear reason as well as to talk reason. Let us go back to a point on which I wished to fix your attention, but from which we digressed. In trying to correct Mary’s habit of rummaging in your work-basket, you boxed her ears, and stormed at her in a most unmotherly way. Did it do any good? No; for in ten minutes she was at the same work again. For this I talked to her kindly, and endeavoured to make her sensible that it was wrong to disturb your basket.”

“And much good it will do!” Mrs. Elder did not feel very amiable.

“We shall see,” said Uncle William, in his calm way. “Now I propose that we both go out of this room, and let Mary come into it, and be here alone for half an hour. My word for it, she doesn’t touch your work-basket.”

“And my word for it, she goes to it the first thing.”

“Notwithstanding you boxed her ears for the same fault so recently?”

“Yes, and notwithstanding you reasoned with her, and talked to her so softly but a few moments since.”

“Very well. The experiment is worth making, not to see who is right, but to see if a gentler mode of government than the one you have adopted will not be much better for your children. I am sure that it will.”

As proposed, the mother and Uncle William left the room, and Mary was allowed to go into it and remain there alone for half an hour. Long before this time had expired, Mrs. Elder’s excited feelings had cooled off, and been succeeded by a more sober and reflective state of mind. At the end of the proposed period, Uncle William came down, and joining his sister, said–