said Milly plaintively. "When I was
a very little girl I used to stand in the corner. I don't think nurse
has punished me for years."

Sir Edward was in a dilemma; children's punishments were quite unknown
to him. Milly seemed to guess at his difficulty.

"How were you punished when you were a little boy, uncle?"

"I used to be well thrashed. Many is the whipping that I have had from
my father!"

"What is a whipping--like you gave Fritz when he went into the game
wood?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. The child clasped her little hands tighter, and set
her lips firmer, as she saw before her eyes a strong arm dealing very
heavy strokes with a riding-whip. Then she said in an awe-struck tone,--

"And do you think that is how you had better punish me?"

Sir Edward smiled grimly as he looked at the baby figure standing so
erect before him.

"No," he said; "I do not think you are a fit subject for that kind of
treatment."

Milly heaved a sigh of relief.

"And don't you know how to punish," she said after some minutes of
awkward silence. There was commiseration in her tone. The situation was
becoming ludicrous to Sir Edward, though there was a certain amount of
annoyance at feeling his inability to carry out his threat.

"Nurse told me," continued his little niece gravely, "that she knew a
little boy who was shut up in a dark cupboard for a punishment; but he
was found nearly dead, and really died the next day, from fright. There
is a dark cupboard on the kitchen stairs. I don't think I should be very
frightened, because God will be in there with me. Do you think that
would do?"

This was not acceptable. The child went on with knitted brows:

"I expect the Bible will tell you how to punish. I remember a man who
picked up sticks on Sunday--he was stoned dead; and Elisha's servant was
made a leper, and some children were killed by a bear, and a prophet by
a lion, and Annas and Sophia were struck dead. All of them were punished
'most severely,' weren't they? If you forgave me a little bit, and left
out the 'most severely,' it would make it easier, I expect."

"Perhaps I might do that," said poor Sir Edward, who by this time longed
to dispense with the punishment altogether; "as it was only a
flower-pot, I will leave out the 'most severely.'"

Milly's face brightened.

"I think," she said, coming up to him and laying one hand on his
knee--"I think if I were to go to bed instead of coming down to dessert
with yo