is lessons and hates his master, beats me
entirely. Some day they will go more sensibly to work.

"You see, in the old times, Carrie, men used to beat their wives;
and you don't think the women were any the better for it, do you?"

"Of course they weren't," Carrie said, indignantly.

"But it was usual, you know, Carrie, just as you say that it is
usual for masters to beat boys--as if they would do nothing,
without being thrashed. I can't see any difference between the two
things."

"I can see a great deal of difference, sir!"

"Well, what is the difference, Carrie?"

But Carrie disdained to give any answer. Still, as she sat sewing
and thinking the matter over, she acknowledged to herself that she
really could not see any good and efficient reason why boys should
be beaten, any more than women.

"But women don't do bad things, like boys," she said, breaking
silence at last.

"Don't they, Carrie? I am not so sure of that. I have heard of
women who are always nagging their husbands, and giving them no
peace of their lives. I have heard of women who think of nothing
but dress, and who go about and leave their homes and children to
shift for themselves. I have heard of women who spend all their
time spreading scandal. I have heard of--"

"There, that is enough," Carrie broke in hastily. "But you don't
mean to say that they would be any the better for beating, Gerald?"

"I don't know, Carrie; I should think perhaps they might be,
sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite
as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for
playing some prank--which comes just as naturally, to him, as
mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a
boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or
any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a
very different thing to keeping the cane always going, at school,
as they do now.

"But here comes Bob. Well, Bob, is the doctor gone? Didn't you ask
him to come up, and have a cigar?"

"Yes; but he said he had got two or three cases at the hospital he
must see, and would wait until this evening."

"How have you got on, Bob?"

"Splendidly. I wonder why they don't teach at school, like that."

"It didn't sound much like teaching," Carrie said, severely.

"I don't suppose it did, Carrie; but it was teaching, for all that.
Why, I have learned as much, this evening, as I did in a dozen
lessons, in s