_The Effect_.

Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa
time to think about it a little.

"I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a
great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did."

"I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her
eyes and looking a little confused.

"But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle tone,
"that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that Bridget
gave you."

Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then, reaching up
to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said,

"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I
live."

_Only a Single Lesson, after all_.

Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would
have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it was
only _one_. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no
nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or
morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the
workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right
direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but