“There comes my little Martha, the light of the whole house,” said Mrs. Laurie.  In a few moments, a sweet-faced child presented herself, and was about entering, when Henry stepped into the door, and, putting a foot against each side, blocked up the way.  Martha attempted to pass the rude boy, and, in doing so, fell over one of his feet, and struck her face a severe blow upon the floor.  The loud scream of the hurt child, the clattering of Henry down-stairs, and the excited exclamation of the mother as she sprang forward, were simultaneous.  Mr. Laurie and Mr. Fleetwood came running up from the room below, and arrived in time to see a gush of blood from the nose of Martha, as her mother raised her from the floor.

“Isn’t it too much!” exclaimed Mrs. Laurie.  “I think that it is the worst boy I ever saw in my life!”

The application of a little cold water soon staunched the flow of blood, and a few kind words soothed the feelings of the child, who sat in her mother’s lap, and answered her aunt when she spoke to her, like a little lady, as she was.

“Where are the rest of your children?” asked Mrs. Fleetwood.  The gentlemen were now seated with the ladies.

“You’ve had a pretty fair sample of them,” replied Mr. Laurie, smiling good humouredly, “and may as well be content with that for the present.  To say the best of them, they are about as wild a set of young scape-graces as ever made each other miserable, and their parents, too, sometimes.”

“Why, Mr. Laurie!” exclaimed his wife, who had not forgotten her old opinions, freely expressed, about the ease with which children could be governed.  “I’m sure you needn’t say that.  I think our children quite as good as other people’s, and a little better than some I could name.”

“Well, perhaps they are, and nothing to brag of at that,” replied Mr. Laurie.  “Children are children, and you can’t make any thing more out of them.”

“But children should be made orderly and obedient,” said Mrs. Laurie, with some dignity of expression.

“If they can,” pleasantly returned the father.  “So far, we, at least, have not succeeded to our wishes in this respect.  As to order and obedience, they seem to be cardinal sins rather than cardinal virtues, at present.  But I hope better things after a while.”

As this was said, some one was heard tumbling rather than walking up-stairs, and, in a moment after, in bolted a boy about seven years old, crying out—­

“Hen’ says Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood have come!  Have they, mom?”

The boy stopped short on perceiving that strangers were present.

“Yes, my son, your Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood are here,” said Mr. Fleetwood, reaching out his hand to the little fellow.  Remembering Martha’s former rigid notions about the government of children, he felt so much amused by what he saw, that he could hardly help laughing out immoderately.  “Come here,” he added, “and let me talk to you.”