Debts of Hoj^or. 31 



ing look she threw toward the food, she craved she gave 

 no expression to it, and even as she stood watching the 

 water run into the marble basin, she said nothing, but with 

 the first pressure of the cool fluid upon her angry face, and 

 she drew back a perfect little /?/;•?/ and stamping her small 

 foot upon the floor, she cried: " I never asked to come. It's 

 too far." 



As long as our will lies along of the child's will, this not 

 having been consulted, is never heard from, but the 

 moment the wills cross, and like a flash there rises in the 

 breast of every quick-witted child, resentment at the un- 

 ceremonious way he has been disposed of, and in his heart 

 at last he cries, I never asked to come. 



Of course there are times when the cool restriction of the 

 parent must be laid upon the child's turbulant nature, but 

 we must look well to it, that the circumstances surrounding 

 these occasions justify, and we must never invite them 

 needlessly. 



Over in a corner we see a girl bending above a book. 

 Now we always have great sympathy for a girl who loves 

 a book, and seeing one engaged with one, we feel like 

 tiptoeing along for a glance over her shoulder to see has she 

 made a wise selection. But we never like to see a girl 

 reading the way this one spoken of is doing, with her 

 shoulders drawn forward as though she had accustomed 

 herself to read by too little light; thus reaching forward for 

 all there is to be gained; more than this, reading hurriedly, 

 with her eyes darting from time to time to the door as 

 though she feared interruption, and with a guilty flush upon 

 her face, and, at a slight noise, thrusting her book aside 

 only to resume it again when satisfied her fear was ground- 

 less. 



There is surely something wrong when a girl reads a book 

 thus. Either the book is bad, or something else is bad. But 

 this one we find later is one to be approved. Then why did 

 she need to read it by stealth, as a dog partakes of a stolen 

 bone — with one eye on the food, and one on the world at 

 large? 



