"But she said I was a naughty boy when I went out just now, and I
was sorry for what I had done, and wanted to be good."

"Aunt Mary didn't know that you were sorry, I am sure. When she
called you 'naughty boy,' what did you say?"

"I was going to say 'You're a fool!' but I didn't. I tried hard not
to let my tongue say the bad words, though it wanted to."

"Why did you try not to say them?"

"Because it would have been wrong, and would have made you feel
sorry; and I love you." Again the repentant boy kissed her. His eyes
were full of tears, and so were the eyes of his mother.

While talking over this incident with her husband, Mrs. Hartley
said--"Were not all these impressions so light, I would feel
encouraged. The boy has warm and tender feelings, but I fear that
his passionate temper and selfishness will, like evil weeds,
completely check their growth."

"The case is bad enough, Anna, but not so bad, I hope, as you fear.
These good affections are never active in vain. They impress the
mind with an indelible impression. In after years the remembrance of
them will revive the states they produced, and give strength to good
desires and intentions. Amid all his irregularities and wanderings
from good, in after-life, the thoughts of his mother will restore
the feelings he had to-day, and draw him back from evil with cords
of love that cannot be broken. The good now implanted will remain,
and, like ten just men, save the city. In most instances where men
abandon themselves finally to evil courses, it will be found that
the impressions made in childhood were not of the right kind; that
the mother's influence was not what it should have been. For myself,
I am sure that a different mother would have made me a different
man. When a boy, I was too much like Clarence; but the tenderness
with which my mother always treated me, and the unimpassioned but
earnest manner in which she reproved and corrected my faults,
subdued my unruly temper. When I became restless or impatient, she
always had a book to read to me, or a story to tell, or had some
device to save me from myself. My father was neither harsh nor
indulgent towards me; I cherish his memory with respect and love;
but I have different feelings when I think of my mother. I often
feel, even now, as if she were near me--as if her cheek were laid to
mine. My father would place his hand upon my head caressingly, but
my mother would lay her cheek against mine. I did not expe