Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/213

 Rh "A piece of yellow nankin would be bought to dress the whole family, like three sticks of barley sugar."

He was not amiable, and he was not polite, and he was not a safe child on whom to try experiments of the "Harry and Lucy" order, as the following anecdote proves:

"By way of a wholesome and moral lesson of self-command and self-denial, our mother took us past Madame Fisterre's (the pastry cook's) windows, and bade us look at all the good things; whereupon we fixed our ardent affections on a tray of apple puffs. Then she said: 'Now, my dears, let us go away; it is so good for little children to restrain themselves.' Upon this we three devilets turned flashing eyes and burning cheeks on our moralizing mother, broke the window with our fists, clawed out the tray of apple puffs, and bolted, leaving poor Mother a sadder and a wiser woman, to pay the damages of her lawless brood's proceedings."

It is the children's age when such a story—and many more like it—are gleefully narrated and are gladly read. Yet if we must exchange the old-time reticence for unreserved