hour, grew fretful and exceedingly
troublesome, preventing all pleasant intercourse between the
visitors and visited, and that at nine o'clock he was carried off
screaming to his bed.

"If that were my child," said Mr. Little, pausing at his own door,
and turning round to Mr. and Mrs. Manly, who had accompanied his
wife thus far on their way home, "I would teach him better manners,
or I would half kill him. I never saw such an ill-conditioned little
imp in my life!"

"Children are children, you know," was Mr. Manly's quiet reply.

"Yes, but children may be made to behave, if any pains at all be
taken with them. It is really unpardonable for any one to let a
child like that worry visitors as he did us this evening."

"Few children of his age, Mr. Little, unless of a remarkably quiet
and obedient disposition, are much better than Pelby's little boy."

"As to that, Mr. Manly," broke in Mrs. Little, "there's our Tommy, a
fine boy of twelve, as you know. He never acted like that when he
was a child. I never had a bit of trouble with him when we had
company. We could bring him down into the parlour when he was of
Henry Pelby's age, and he would go round and kiss all the ladies so
sweetly, and then go off to bed, like a little man, as he was."

"Ah, Mrs. Little, you forget," said Mr. Manly, laughing.

"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Manly. I don't forget these things. We could do
any thing with Tommy at his age, and it was because we managed him
rightly. You can do any thing with children you please."

"Indeed, then, Mrs. Little, it is more than I can say," remarked
Mrs. Manly. "If my children could be made any thing at all of, they
would have been different from what they are; and yet, I believe,"
she added, with a feeling of maternal pride, "they are not the worst
children I have ever seen."

"Good-nights" were now exchanged, and, after Mr. and Mrs. Manly had
walked a few steps, the former said,

"Well, this is a curious world that we live in. Ten years ago,
Pelby, then a trim bachelor, as nice and particular as any of the
tribe, said, in allusion to Tommy Little--'If that were my child, I
would half kill him but what I'd make a better boy of him!'"

"He did?"

"Yes, those were his very words. We were spending an evening at Mr.
and Mrs. Little's, and when Tommy was about two years old or so; and
Pelby was terribly annoyed by him. He acted pretty much as all
children do--that is, pretty much as Henry did to-night. But Pe