f% 
NE of Janie’s secrets,’ is a household saying for 
a rumour spread through the house, and cur¬ 
rently reported in whispers ; and Janie’s profound 
mysteries place her on a footing of confidential and 
important relationship with every one in both upper and 
lower regions: which is well; as some of those schemes of 
hers might lead to undesirable results, were they not met 
by grown-up interference and direction. 
To her little mind nothing, indeed, could be more charming than 
clandestinely to turn the water-cock in the conservatory, and to produce 
a flood, ‘that all the p’ants and f’owers and things might f’oat like 
Noah’s ark on the top of the water.’ And had it not been that those 
fat little fingers had not strength to effect her purpose, even as she 
stood on tip-toe, and that thus the co-operation of an older person was 
required, a ruin of camelias and geraniums would have been effected 
quite sufficient to equal any expectations less animated than her own. 
And in the same manner, a most timely discovery of my Janie’s 
best intentions alone saved sister Mary’s water-colour view of Copsley 
Park from the gratuitous and effective introduction of a ‘ b’ue b’ue sky,’ 
which, armed with a cake of indigo incautiously left within reach, that 
little damsel was preparing to rub in ‘ over the clouds in the ceiling, 
and all for a surp’ise; ’ while she still laments over having been inter¬ 
cepted in an enterprise of concealing herself behind the pendulum of the 
great hall clock—‘a little cupboard just big enough for me’—whence 
she thought to astonish the various members of the family as they 
passed by to dinner. 
But what is to become of my wee wifie in this big house, where, from 
papa downwards, every member of the family combines to do away with 
the effects of her mother’s judicious education, by a system of unmitigated 
spoiling ? And how am I to carry out disciplinarian measures, when they 
take no effect upon the subject thereof ? Only yesterday, Janie was sen¬ 
tenced to the punishment of being put in the corner in its most aggra¬ 
vated form—her face being turned to the wall—in consequence of the 
