1842] Children Lost in the Woods 81 



Annie in his arms and they all came home in very tolerable 

 spirits. Bro kept up his heart very well. It was in our 

 own valley, but I had given them leave to go into Cudham 

 Wood, which was rash of me, and I have forbidden it in 

 future. I was easy as soon as I saw Snow, as then I was 

 sure Bessy would be hunting after them. Poor Bessy had 

 been carrying Annie for three hours. 



The poor little nursery-maid, Bessy, was ill for a year 

 after this adventure. Elizabeth wrote: "We are all in 

 admiration of Snow's steadiness of mind. There is some- 

 thing so dreadful to a child in the idea of being lost that 

 I quite wonder she did not at any rate fall into great 

 distress." 



Elizabeth Wedgwood to her aunt Madame Sismondi. 



[11 Nov. 1842.] Emma's letter told a nice trait of Erny. 

 He had been quarrelling with Isabella about putting on a 

 little warm coat, an old one of Bro's, so Emma told him if 

 he would wear it every day she would give him a shilling. 

 So the next day he came down in it and said, " I don't want 

 to have that shilling, Aunt Emma ; this coat is so nice now 

 I have got it on." 



This story of Erny and his shilling illustrates my mother's 

 tendency to bribery. I am afraid it sounds immoral, but 

 I do not think it was so immoral as it sounds. There would 

 never have been any bribery as to any action which involved 

 any serious question of right or wrong. No child would ever 

 be'bribed to be kind to an animal, or to tell the truth. But 

 it was her view that it was a good thing to avoid struggles 

 over small matters. As a fact we were obedient children, 

 and anything like deliberate disobedience may be said to 

 have never entered our heads. The rules of life were very 

 simple, and when anything could be explained to us it was, 

 and even when it could not we never questioned the abso- 

 luteness of a definite command. 



