will be good' until she saw that he was really sorry for the scratch
or pinch which he had given, or the angry word he had spoken; and she
never waited in vain, for the sorrow was very real, and generally
ended in 'Do you think God can forgive me?' When Fanny's love of
teasing had exasperated Coley into stabbing her arm with a pencil,
their mother had resolution enough to decree that no provocation
could excuse 'such unmanliness' in a boy, and inflicted a whipping
which cost the girl more tears than her brother, who was full of the
utmost grief a child could feel for the offence. No fault was
lightly passed over; not that punishment was inflicted for every
misdemeanour, but it was always noticed, and the children were shown
with grave gentleness where they were wrong; or when there was a
squabble among them, the mother's question, 'Who will give up?'
generally produced a chorus of 'I! I! I!' Withal 'mamma' was the
very life of all the fun, and play, and jokes, enjoying all with
spirits and merriment like the little ones' own, and delighting in
the exchange of caresses and tender epithets. Thus affection and
generosity grew up almost spontaneously towards one another and all
the world.

On this disposition was grafted that which was the one leading
characteristic of Coley's life, namely, a reverent and religious
spirit, which seems from the first to have been at work, slowly and
surely subduing inherent defects, and raising him, step by step, from
grace to grace.

Five years old is in many cases an age of a good deal of thought.
The intelligence is free from the misapprehensions and misty
perceptions of infancy; the first course of physical experiments is
over, freedom of speech and motion have been attained, and yet there