way I had stared, the day before, at the clothes of two ladies who had
come in to visit her. I never needed that lesson again. To this day, if I
find myself departing from it for an instant, the old tingling shame burns
in my cheeks.

To this day, also, the old tingling pain burns my cheeks as I recall
certain rude and contemptuous words which were said to me when I was very
young, and stamped on my memory forever. I was once called a "stupid
child" in the presence of strangers. I had brought the wrong book from my
father's study. Nothing could be said to me to-day which would give me a
tenth part of the hopeless sense of degradation which came from those
words. Another time, on the arrival of an unexpected guest to dinner, I
was sent, in a great hurry, away from the table, to make room, with the
remark that "it was not of the least consequence about the child; she
could just as well have her dinner afterward." "The child" would have been
only too happy to help on the hospitality of the sudden emergency, if the
thing had been differently put; but the sting of having it put in that way
I never forgot. Yet in both these instances the rudeness was so small, in
comparison with what we habitually see, that it would be too trivial to
mention, except for the bearing of the fact that the pain it gave has
lasted till now.

When we consider seriously what ought to be the nature of a reproof from a
parent to a child, and what is its end, the answer is simple enough. It
should be nothing but the superior wisdom and strength, explaining to
inexperience and feebleness wherein they have made a mistake, to the end
that they may avoid such mistakes in future. If personal annoyance,
impatience, antagonism enter in, the relation is marred and the end
endangered. Most sacred and inalienable of all rights is the right of
helplessness to protection from the strong, of ignorance to counsel from