ROUNDABOUT INSTRUCTION.]

Now Delia contrived to obtain a great influence and ascendency over the
minds of the children by means of these dolls. She fell at once into the
idea of the children in regard to them, and treated them always as if they
were real persons; often speaking of them and to them, in the presence of
the other children, in the most serious manner. This not only pleased the
children very much, but enabled Della, under pretense of talking to the
dolls, to communicate a great deal of useful instruction to the children,
and sometimes to make very salutary and lasting impressions upon their
minds.

_Lectures to the Dolls_.

For instance, sometimes when Jane was making Maria a visit, and the two
children came into her room with their dolls in their arms, she would speak
to them as if they were real persons, and then taking them in her hands
would set them before her on her knee, and give them a very grave lecture
in respect to the proper behavior which they were to observe during the
afternoon. If Delia had attempted to give precisely the same lecture to the
children themselves, they would very soon have become restless and uneasy,
and it would have made very little impression upon them. But being
addressed to the dolls, they would be greatly interested in it, and would
listen with the utmost attention; and there is no doubt that the counsels
and instructions which she gave made a much stronger impression upon their
minds than if they had been addressed directly to the children themselves.
To give an idea of these conversations I will report one of them in full.

"How do you do, my children?" she said, on one such occasion. "I am very
glad to see you. How nice you look! You have come, Andella (Andella was the
name of Jane's doll), to make Rosalie a visit. I am very glad. You will
have a very pleasant time, I am sure; because you never quarrel. I observe
that, when you both wish for the same thing, you don't quarrel for it and
try to pull it away from one another; but one waits like a lady until the
other has done with it. I expect you have been a very good girl, Andella,
since you were here last."

Then, turning to Jane, she asked, in a somewhat altered tone, "Has she been
a good girl, Jane?"

"She has been a _pretty_ good girl," said Jane, "but she has been sick."

"Ah!" said Della in a tone of great concern, and looking again at Andella,
"I heard that you had been sick. I heard that you had an attac