"Well, John, thank you. I knew you did not wish to be too hard, and I am
glad you see it was only ignorance."

John's voice almost startled me as he answered:

"Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance?
Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to
wickedness?--and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If
people can say, 'Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they
think it is all right. I suppose Martha Mulwash did not mean to kill
that baby when she dosed it with Dalby and soothing syrups; but she did
kill it, and was tried for manslaughter."

"And serve her right, too," said Tom. "A woman should not undertake to
nurse a tender little child without knowing what is good and what is bad
for it."

"Bill Starkey," continued John, "did not mean to frighten his brother
into fits when he dressed up like a ghost and ran after him in the
moonlight; but he did; and that bright, handsome little fellow, that
might have been the pride of any mother's heart is just no better than
an idiot, and never will be, if he lives to be eighty years old. You
were a good deal cut up yourself, Tom, two weeks ago, when those young
ladies left your hothouse door open, with a frosty east wind blowing
right in; you said it killed a good many of your plants."

"A good many!" said Tom; "there was not one of the tender cuttings that
was not nipped off. I shall have to strike all over again, and the worst
of it is that I don't know where to go to get fresh ones. I was nearly