“Do you hear?” And Mrs. Martinet stamped with her foot, to give stronger emphasis to her words.

“Lizzy snatched my top-cord out of my hands, and won’t give it to me!”

“Go out of this room!”

“Shan’t Lizzy give me my top-cord?”

“Go out, I tell you!”

“I want my top-cord.”

“Go out!”

My poor friend’s face was red, and her voice trembling with passion.  With each renewed order for the child to leave the room, she stamped with her foot upon the floor.  Harry, instead of going out as he was directed to do, kept advancing nearer and nearer, as he repeated his complaint, until he came close up to where we were sitting.

“Didn’t I tell you to go out!” exclaimed his mother, losing all patience.

As she spoke, she arose hastily, and seizing him by the arm, dragged, rather than led him from the room.

“I never saw such a child!” she said, returning after closing the door upon Harry.  “Nothing does but force.  You might talk to him all day without moving him an inch, when he gets in one of these moods.”

Bang went the door open, and, “I (sic) wan’t my top-cord!” followed in louder and more passionate tones than before.

“Isn’t it beyond all endurance!” cried my friend, springing up and rushing across the room.

The passionate child, who had been spoiled by injudicious management, got a sound whipping and was shut up in a room by himself.  After performing this rather unpleasant task, Mrs. Martinet returned to the parlour, flushed, excited, and trembling in every nerve.

“I expect that boy will kill me yet,” she said, as she sank, panting, into a chair.  “It is surprising how stubborn and self-willed he grows.  I don’t know how to account for it.  He never has his own way—­I never yield an inch to him when he gets in these terrible humours.  Oh, dear!  I feel sometimes like giving up in despair.”

I did not make a reply, for I could not say any thing that would not have been a reproof of her impatient temper.  After my friend had grown calmer, she renewed her narrative about the dinner.

“As I was saying, when that boy interrupted us, I left the kitchen very much worried, and felt worried all the morning.  Several times I went down to see how things were coming on, but it was plain that Hannah did not mean to have dinner at the hour.  When it was time to put the meat on to roast, the fire was all down in the range.  Half an hour was lost in renewing it.  As I expected, when my husband came home for his dinner, at the regular time, the table was not even set.

“‘Bless me!’ he said, ’isn’t dinner ready?  I told you that I wished it at the hour, particularly.  I have a business engagement at half-past two, that must be met.  It is too bad!  I am out of all patience with these irregularities.  I can’t wait, of course.’