hey could not help it.

"He seems to be a pleasant-spoken youth, and good-natured," said Miss
Bethia.

"Oh, yes! he is very good-natured," said Violet.

Everybody had something to say in his praise. The little ones were
quite enthusiastic. Jem said he was "smart" as well as good-natured,
and David, though he said less, acknowledged that he was very clever,
and added Mr Caldwell's opinion, that Mr Philip had all his father's
talent for business, and would do well if he were really in earnest
about it, and would settle down to it. Several instances of his
kindness to the children and to his own little sisters were repeated,
and Mrs Inglis spoke warmly in his praise.

"Only, mamma," said Violet, with some hesitation, "all these things are
agreeable to himself. He does such things because he likes to do them."

"And ain't that to be put to his credit," said Miss Bethia. "It is well
when one does right things and likes to do them, ain't it?"

"Yes; but people ought to do right things because they are right, and
not just because they are pleasant. If very different things were
agreeable to him, he would do them all the same."

"Stuff, Letty! with your buts and your ifs. Mr Phil, is just like
other people. It is only you and Davie that have such high-flown
notions about right and wrong, and duty, and all that."

"Our ideas of `duty and all that' are just like other people's, Jem, I
think," said David. "They are just like Miss Bethia's, at any rate, and
mamma's."

"And like Jem's own ideas, though not like Mr Philip's" said Violet.

"Violet means that if he had to choose between what is right and what is
pleasant, the chances are he would choose to do what is pleasant," said
Davie.

"He would not wait to choose," said Violet, gravely. "He would just do
what was pleasant without at all thinking about the other."

"Mamma, do you call that charitable?" said Jem.

"I think Violet means--and Davie--that his actions are, as a general
thing, guided and governed by impulse rather than by principle," said
Mrs Inglis; "and you know, Jem, the same reliance cannot be placed on
such a person as on--"

"On a steady old rock, like Mr Caldwell or our Davie," said Jem. "Yes,
I know; still I like Phil."

"So we all like him," said Violet. "But, as mamma says, we do not rely
on him. He likes us and our ways, and our admiration of him, and he
likes to come here and talk with mamma, and get good advice, and all
that.