over to-morrow, and Julia could then attend to Ethel; but Mary was quite sure it would not do to wait an hour or a minute; the case must be attended to now. “It is my duty, and I will not shrink from it. I’ll try to act exactly as mamma always does,—not harsh, but sad and gentle,—Ethel, my child, come here.”

“Don’t want to,” said Ethel, approaching slowly and sullenly, drawing her little chair behind her.

“Not that way, dear; mamma never allows you to go all doubled up, dragging your chair like a snail with his house on his back. There, sit down and tell me about it. What made you so naughty?”

“My head aches. Don’t want to talk.”

“Were you playing dolls?”

“Yes. Pep’mint Drop is jiggly and won’t sit up.”

“Peppermint Drop is very old and has rheumatism, Ethel; she was my dolly before ever you were born.”

“Well, my head aches. Don’t want to talk.”

“But you must talk. I’m your mother to-day.”

“You?” Ethel looked up saucily, and Mary felt half inclined to laugh; but when one has the care of a young child one must be firm.

“Ethel, I am your mother to-day. What were you doing with those dolls?”

“Nothing! Kittyleen pulled off Pep’mint’s arm.”

“Yes, and then?”

“Then she was cross.”

“No, no. What did you do to her?”

“Tipped her over.”

“Ethel! Ethel!”

“Well, she tipped me over too.”

“This is perfectly dreadful!” exclaimed Mary, as solemnly as if she had never heard it before. And then she sat in deep thought. What would mamma have done in this case? Did Ethel’s head ache? Possibly. Her cheeks looked hot. Mamma was tender of the children when they were ill, and perhaps would not approve of shutting Ethel in the closet if she had taken cold.

“Ethel,” said Mary in natural tones, “I’m going to be very sweet and gentle. You’ve been extremely to blame, but perhaps Kittyleen may forgive you if you ask her.”

“H’m! Don’t want her to!”

“What! Don’t want her to forgive you?”

“No, I don’t; Kittyleen was bad herself!”

“But you were bad first, Ethel.”

“H’m! If I ask her to forgive me she’ll think she was good!”

Mary looked at stubborn Ethel sorrowfully. Oh, how hard it was to make children repent!

“Perhaps I’d better leave her by herself to think. Mamma does that sometimes.” Then aloud: “Ethel, I’m now going into the kitchen, and I wish you to sit here and think till I come back.”

“No, you mustn’t; my mamma won’t allow you to shut me up, Flaxie!”

“But I’m not shutting you up; I only leave you to think.”

“Don’t know how to think.”

“Yes, you do, Ethel, you think every time you wink.”

“Well, may I wink at the clock then?” asked the child, relenting, for it was one of her delights to sit and watch the minute-hand steal slowly over the clock’s white face.

“Yes, you may, if you’ll keep saying over and over, while it ticks, ‘I’ve been a naughty girl—a naughty girl; mamma’ll be sorry, mamma’ll be sorry.’”

PUNISHING ETHEL.—Page 17.

“Well, I will, but hurry, Flaxie; don’t be gone long.”

In fifteen minutes Mary returned to find the child in the same spot; her eyes pinker than ever with weeping.

“Just the way I used to look when mamma left me alone,” thought Mary, encouraged.

“Well, Ethel,” with a grown-up folding of the hands which would have convulsed Fanny Townsend. “Well, have you been thinking, dear?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell mamma about it; I shan’t tell you.”

“Mamma is very sick, my child.”

“Then I’ll tell Ninny.” Ninny was the children’s pet name for Julia.

“No, Ninny has a headache. I’m your mamma this afternoon. And I won’t be cross to you, darling,” added Mary, with humility, recalling some of her past lectures to this little sister.

“Well,” said Ethel faintly, with her apron between her teeth. “I wasn’t very bad to Kittyleen, but if she wants to forgive me I’ll let her.”

“O sweetest, you make me so happy!”

“Don’t want to make you happy,” returned Ethel disdainfully; “don’t care anything about you! But mamma’s sick. And you—won’t you write her a letter?”

“Write mamma a letter?”

“No, Kittyleen, write it with vi’let ink, won’t you, Flaxie?”

The note was very short and written just as Ethel dictated it:

Ethel meant just this, no more, no less. She was sorry; still, if she had done wrong so had Kittyleen; if she needed forgiveness Kittyleen needed it also.

“Now, put something in the corner,” said she, looking on anxiously, as Mary directed the envelope. “You always put something in the corner of your notes, Flaxie; I’ve seen you, and seen you.”

“Do I? Oh yes, sometimes I put ‘kindness of Ethel’ in the corner, but that is when you carry the note.”

“Put it there now.”

“But are you going to carry the note?”

“No, Dodo will carry it if I give her five kisses.”

“Then, I’ll write ‘Kindness of Dora.’”

“No, no, I’m the one that’s kind, not Dodo,” insisted the child.

And “Kindness of Ethel” it had to be in the corner in large, plain letters.

Dora laughed when she read it, and Mary smiled indulgently.

Kittyleen did not smile, however, for she did not know there was any mistake. She accepted Ethel’s doubtful apology with joy, and made her nurse Martha write in reply, “I forgive you.” And in the left-hand corner of her envelope were the words “Kindness of Kittyleen,” for she supposed that was the correct thing, and she never allowed Ethel to be more fashionable than herself if she could possibly help it.

Mary felt that on the whole her first case of discipline had resulted successfully, and was impatient for to-morrow to come, that her mother might hear of it and give her approval.

CHAPTER II.
ASKING FOR “WHIZ.”

Next day Mrs. Gray was somewhat better, and when Mary knocked softly at the chamber door, Julia replied, “Come in.” The little girl had not expected to see her mother looking so pale and ill; and the tears sprang to her eyes as she leaned over the bed to give the loving kiss which she meant should fall as gently as a dewdrop on the petal of a rose. It did not seem a fitting time for the question she had come to ask about the spelling-school. Julia was brushing Mrs. Gray’s hair, and Mary kissed the dark, silken locks which strayed