if possible, and thus getting it
into a happier state. In order to do this, she tried various means,
but without effect. The child still cried on, and in a manner so
disturbing to the mother, that she found it almost impossible to
keep from enforcing silence by a stern threat of instant punishment.
But, she kept on, patiently doing what she thought to be right, and
was finally successful in soothing the unhappy child. To her
husband, with whom she was conversing on that evening about the
state into which Ellen had fallen, she said--

"I find it very hard to get along with her. She tires my patience
almost beyond endurance. Sometimes it is impossible to bear with her
crying, and I silence it by punishment. But I observe that if I can
produce a cheerful state by amusing her and getting her interested
in some play or employment, she retains her even temper much longer
than when she has been stopped from crying by threats or punishment.
If I only had patience with her, I could get along better. But it is
so hard to have patience with a fretful, ever crying child."

Of the mental exercises through which Mrs. Fleetwood passed, Miss
Martha Spencer knew nothing. She saw only the real and supposed
errors of her mode of government, and strongly condemned them. Her
doctrine was, in governing children, "implicit obedience must be had
at all hazards." At all hazards, as she generally expressed or
thought it was only meant for extreme or extraordinary cases.
Obedience she believed to be a thing easily obtained by any one who
chose to enforce it. No where, it must be owned, did she see
children as orderly and obedient as she thought they should be. But
that she did not hesitate to set down to the fault of the parents.
Her influence in the family of her sister was not good. To some
extent she destroyed the freedom of Mrs. Fleetwood, and to some
extent disturbed the government of her children by interfering with
it, and attempting to make the little ones do as she thought best.
Her interference was borne about as well as it could be by her
sister, who now and then gave her a "piece of her mind," and in
plain, straight forward terms. Mrs. Fleetwood's usual remark, when
Martha talked about what she would do, if she had children, was a
good humoured one, and generally something after this fashion--

"Old maids' children are the best in the world, I know. They never
cry, are never disobedient, and never act disorderly."

Martha hardly