sad but
affectionate tone. She appealed to his sense of right, to his
gratitude, and to his hopes of future success and respectability in
life. She described the sad end to which these beginnings of
wrong-doing would inevitably lead him, and earnestly besought him to
try to do better, before his bad habits should become confirmed. Her
earnest manner, and her pale, haggard cheeks, down which tears were
slowly stealing, touched the feelings of Oscar. Moisture began to
gather in his eyes, in spite of himself. He tried to appear very much
interested in the food he was eating, and to look as though he was
indifferent to what his mother was saying. And, in a measure, he did
succeed in choking down those good feelings which were beginning to
stir in his heart, and which, mistaken boy! he thought it would be
unmanly to betray.

Yes, he was mistaken--sadly mistaken. Unmanly to be touched by a
mother's grief, and to be moved by a mother's tender entreaties!
Unmanly to acknowledge that we have done wrong, or to express sorrow
for the wrong act! Unmanly to resolve to resist temptation in the
future! Where is this monstrous law of manliness to be found? If
anywhere, it must be only in the code of pirates and desperadoes, who
have renounced all human laws and ties.

The school hour was at hand, and Oscar was obliged to start as soon as
he had finished his breakfast. Had he not stifled the better
promptings of his heart, and thus done violence to his nature, he would
not have left his mother without assuring her that he felt sorry for
his misconduct; for he _did_ feel some degree of regret, although he
was too proud to acknowledge it. His mother, however, saw some tokens
of feeling which he could not wholly conceal, and she left him with a
sad heart, but with the hope that at least some faint impression had
been made upon him.

And, indeed, some impression was made upon Oscar's heart. The feeling
of sullenness with which he awoke, had subsided into something
resembling "low spirits." Nor was this all the effect his mother's
conversation had upon him. As he lay awake in the morning, he had
planned the secret destruction of a beautiful sled which had been given
to George, the winter previous, and which was very precious in the eyes
of the owner; but now he relinquished this mean and revengeful design.
Little George thus escaped the dreaded "after-clap," but he never knew
what a blow it would have been, nor how near he