Their little hearts opened to it, and bathed in it as in a fountain of joy.  It washed away all their small naughtinesses, made them strong and brave, gradually lessened the underhandedness of the girl, the roughness and selfishness of the boy, and turned the child Oliver into a little angel—­that is, if children ever are angels except in poetry; but it is certain, and Christian often shuddered to see it, that mismanagement and want of love can change them into little demons.

And at last there came a day when, passive resistance being useless, she had to strike with strong hand; the resolute hand which, as before seen, Christian, gentle as she was, could lift up against injustice, and especially injustice shown to children.

It happened thus:  One day Arthur had been very naughty, or so his Aunt Henrietta declared, when Mrs. Grey, who heard the disturbance, came to inquire into it.  She thought it not such great wickedness—­ rather a piece of boyish mischief than intentional “insult,” as Miss Gascoigne affirmed it was.  The lady had lost her spectacles; Arthur had pretended deeply to sympathize, had aided in the search; and finally, after his aunt had spent several minutes of time and fuss, and angry accusations against every body, he had led her up to the dining-room mirror, where she saw the spectacles—­calmly resting on her own nose!

“But I only meant it as a joke, mother.  And oh! it was so funny!” cried Arthur, between laughing and sobbing; for his ears tingled still with the sharp blow which had proved that the matter was no fun at all to Aunt Henrietta.

“It was a very rude joke, and you ought to beg your aunt’s pardon immediately,” said Christian, gravely.

But begging pardon was not half enough salve to the wounded dignity of Miss Gascoigne.  She had been personally offended—­that greatest of all crimes in her eyes—­and she demanded condign punishment.  Nothing short of that well-known instrument which, in compliment to Arthur’s riper years, Phillis had substituted for the tied up posy of twigs chosen out of her birch broom—­a little, slender yellow thing, which black children might once upon a time have played with, and the use of which towards white children inevitably teaches them a sense of burning humiliation, rising into fierce indignation and desire for revenge, not unlike the revenge of negro slaves.  And naturally; for while chastisement makes Christians, punishment only makes brutes.

Almost brutal grew the expression of Arthur’s poor thin face when his aunt insisted on a flogging with the old familiar cane, and after the old custom, by Phillis’s hands.

“Do it, and I’ll kill Phillis!” was all he said, but he looked as if he could, and would.

And when Phillis appeared, not unready or unwilling to execute the sentence—­for she had bitterly resented Arthur’s secession from nursery rule—­the boy clung desperately with both his arms round his step-mother’s waist, and the shriek of “Mother mother!” half fury, half despair, pierced Christian’s very heart.