The truth was Mrs. Campbell was not assigning the real reasons at all which led her to refuse the request of the children, but was giving false reasons in the vain hope of persuading them that it was not best to go. Her real reason was her own timidity about going in boats, and the consequent discomfort which she would suffer in going out in one. This was a good reason, and she should simply have said when the boys came with their request, that she could not allow them to go. They would not have been satisfied with this, it is true, but if their mother had always acted in this way, and had always adhered to her first decision, unless in cases where a change of circumstances, or new facts coming to her knowledge, led her to modify it,—they would have acquiesced, and they would at all events have been less intensely dissatisfied than they were with having pretended reasons offered them, which they could themselves perceive were false, and were only adduced for the purpose of eking out their mother's feeble and inefficient authority.

The affair ended as such affairs with such mothers generally do. The boys persisted in their importunity, and finally Mrs. Campbell said in a sort of pet that if they would not give her any peace in any other way, she supposed

she should have to go. So she rose from her seat and followed the boys down to the boat, complaining all the time of their unreasonableness in spoiling all the pleasure of her walk, by forcing her to go on board a boat which was of all things what she most detested. The next time she came to the Isle of Wight, she said, or went on any other excursion of pleasure, she should leave them at home.

The boatman brought up the boat to the end of the little pier, the boys half pleased at having carried their point, but yet unsatisfied and disquieted in spirit, and very far from being happy, and their mother still more out of humor than they.

Thus by Mrs. Campbell's mode of management, she failed of accomplishing either end. She neither gratified the children by such a compliance with their wishes as should give them a pleasant excursion on the water, nor did she secure her own ease and comfort in escaping such an excursion herself. She might by proper management have secured either one of these objects, whichever on the whole she preferred. But she managed the affair in such a way as to lose both of them.

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. MORELLE'S MANAGEMENT.

WHEN John came to his mother to propose to her his plan of going out upon the water in a row boat, her first feeling was the same with that of Mrs. Campbell, namely, a strong aversion to the excursion on her own account. Her mode of management, however, in such cases, as I believe has already been intimated in the course of these volumes, was very different from that of Mrs. Campbell. She heard the proposal,―made some inquiries in respect to the boat, and the state of the tide, and then said,

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Well, John, I will consider the subject. Go back to Grimkie again and come here in about five minutes, and I will give you my decision."

John knew very well from past experience, that this decision, when he came back to receive it, whatever it might be, would be final.

"Or rather, stop a moment, John," said Mrs. Morelle, just as John was going away. "It won't be necessary for you to come back. I will make a signal. You may look toward me in

about five minutes, and if I conclude to go in the boat, I will hold my handkerchief up in the air, but if I conclude not to go, I will let it fall into my lap."

So John went away and Mrs. Morelle began to consider the question of the proposed row upon the water. Her thoughts on the subject expressed in words, were somewhat as follows:

"It will gratify the children very much to go out in the boat, and it will be uncomfortable for me. But the gratification and pleasure to them will be much greater than any discomfort or pain that I shall experience. There can not be any real danger. The water is not deep, there is no wind, and the tide is coming in. The boat, too, must be a safe one, and the boatman a careful man, for the authorities are always very strict in regulating such things safely in all public places. in England. Still I shall be afraid-though my fears will be groundless,-the effect of imagination, or of the association of ideas, without any real cause. I can not help feeling such fears, it is true, but I can have the good sense to understand the nature of them, and to refuse to allow myself to be governed by them when they stand in the way of any substantial good, such as the happiness of my children. And if I conclude to disregard my fears in this case, and go, then I

must conceal them, for it will half spoil the pleasure of the excursion to the children to suppose I go unwillingly and with pain."

By the time that Mrs. Morelle had gone through with this train of thought in her mind about two minutes had expired, but looking up she saw John standing near the little pier, and looking toward her, awaiting the signal. She did not accordingly delay any longer but held her handkerchief high in the air.

to Grimkie.

"Yes.

"Yes, Grimkie," said John, calling out eagerly That means yes. We are going. Yes, boatman, we are going. Get your boat ready."

In a few minutes Mrs Morelle and Florence came down to the pier, and when all was ready

they got into the boat. her fears and took her ioned seat near the stern. She was a little alarmed at the oscillations which were imparted to the boat by John's getting in. As for Grimkie he stepped in very carefully, or rather very skilfully, so as not to put the boat in motion at all; but John rather liked the tilting of it, and so he took no pains to keep it steady,-not thinking that his mother might be afraid.

Mrs. Morelle concealed place upon a nice cush

The way to get into a boat without tilting it, when there is a lady on board whom you do not