a long time quite
nicely, and would much rather continue things on their present footing.
In the matter of getting married he had been obliged to pretend he liked
it; but times were changed, and if he did not like a thing now, he could
find a hundred unexceptionable ways of making his dislike apparent.

It might have been better if Theobald in his younger days had kicked more
against his father: the fact that he had not done so encouraged him to
expect the most implicit obedience from his own children. He could trust
himself, he said (and so did Christina), to be more lenient than perhaps
his father had been to himself; his danger, he said (and so again did
Christina), would be rather in the direction of being too indulgent; he
must be on his guard against this, for no duty could be more important
than that of teaching a child to obey its parents in all things.

He had read not long since of an Eastern traveller, who, while exploring
somewhere in the more remote parts of Arabia and Asia Minor, had come
upon a remarkably hardy, sober, industrious little Christian
community--all of them in the best of health--who had turned out to be
the actual living descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab; and two men
in European costume, indeed, but speaking English with a broken accent,
and by their colour evidently Oriental, had come begging to Battersby
soon afterwards, and represented themselves as belonging to this people;
they had said they were collecting funds to promote the conversion of
their fellow tribesmen to the English branch of the Christian religion.
True, they turned out to be impostors, for when he gave them a pound and
Christina five shillings from her private purse, they went and got drunk
with it in the next village but one to Battersby; still, this did not
invalidate the story of the Eastern traveller. Then there were the
Romans--whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority
exercised by the head of a family over all its members. Some Romans had
even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the Romans
were not Christians, and knew no better.

The practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction in Theobald's
mind, and if in his, then in Christina's, that it was their duty to begin
training up their children in the way they should go, even from their
earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked
for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they h