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“Isn’t it too much!” exclaimed Mrs. Laurie. “I think that it is the worst boy I ever saw in my life!”

The application of a little cold water soon staunched the flow of blood, and a few kind words soothed the feelings of the child, who sat in her mother’s lap, and answered her aunt when she spoke to her, like a little lady, as she was.

“Where are the rest of your children?” asked Mrs. Fleetwood. The gentlemen were now seated with the ladies.

“You’ve had a pretty fair sample of them,” replied Mr. Laurie, smiling good humouredly, “and may as well be content with that for the present. To say the best of them, they are about as wild a set of young scape-graces as ever made each other miserable, and their parents, too, sometimes.”

“Why, Mr. Laurie!” exclaimed his wife, who had not forgotten her old opinions, freely expressed, about the ease with which children could be governed. “I’m sure you needn’t say that. I think our children quite as good as other people’s, and a little better than some I could name.”

“Well, perhaps they are, and nothing to brag of at that,” replied Mr. Laurie. “Children are children, and you can’t make any thing more out of them.”

“But children should be made orderly and obedient,” said Mrs. Laurie, with some dignity of expression.

“If they can,” pleasantly returned the father. “So far, we, at least, have not succeeded to our wishes in this respect. As to order and obedience, they seem to be cardinal sins rather than cardinal virtues, at present. But I hope better things after a while.”

As this was said, some one was heard tumbling rather than walking up-stairs, and, in a moment after, in bolted a boy about seven years old, crying out–

“Hen’ says Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood have come! Have they, mom?”

The boy stopped short on perceiving that strangers were present.

“Yes, my son, your Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood are here,” said Mr. Fleetwood, reaching out his hand to the little fellow. Remembering Martha’s former rigid notions about the government of children, he felt so much amused by what he saw, that he could hardly help laughing out immoderately. “Come here,” he added, “and let me talk to you.”

The boy went without hesitation to his uncle, who took him by the hand and said, with a half wicked glance at the mother, yet with a broad good humoured smile upon his face,

“That must be a very knowing hen of yours. I should like to have some of her chickens.”

“What hen?” asked the boy, with a serious air.

“Why, the hen that told you we were here.”

“No hen told me that.” The boy looked mystified.

“Oh! I thought you said Hen’ told you so.”

“No, it was Henry.”

“Say, no sir, my son.” Mrs. Laurie’s face was not pale, certainly, as she said this.

The boy did not think it worth while to repeat the formality.

“Oh! it was your brother Henry,” replied Mr. Fleetwood, with affected seriousness. “I thought that must have been a very knowing hen.” The boy, and his sister who had recovered from the pain of her fall, laughed heartily. “Now tell me your name?”

“John.”

“Say John, sir. Where are your manners?” spoke up the mother, who remembered that, with all her sister’s imperfect management of her children, she had succeeded in teaching them to be very respectful in their replies to older persons, and that Earnest, when she last saw him, was a little gentleman in his manners when amy one spoke to him.

“Mo-ther!” came now ringing up the stairs, in a loud, screeching little voice. “Mo-ther! Hen’ won’t let me come up.”

“I declare! That boy is too bad! He’s a perfect torment!” said Mrs. Laurie, fretfully. “I’m out of all heart with him.”

The father stepped to the head of the stairs, and spoke rather sternly to the rebellious Henry. Little feet, were soon heard pattering up, and the youngest of the young hopefuls made her appearance, and, soon after, Henry pushed his really repulsive face into the door and commenced grimacing at the other children, thereby succeeding in what he desired to do, viz., starting little Maggy, the youngest, into a whining, fretful cry, because “Hen’ was making faces” at her. This cry, once commenced, was never known to end without the application of something more decided in its effects than words. It was in vain that the mother used every persuasive, diverting and soothing means in her power: the crying, loud enough to drown all conversation, continued, until, taking the child up hurriedly in her arms, she bore her into another room, where she applied some pretty severe silencing measures, which had, however, the contrary effect to that desired. The child cried on, but louder than before. For nearly ten minutes, she sought by scolding and whipping to silence her, but all was in vain. It is doubtful, after the means used to enforce silence, whether the child could have stopped if she had tried. At last, the mother locked her in a closet, and came, with a flushed face and mortified feelings, back to the room from which she had retired with Maggy.