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FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 107
has given an illustration of the happy effects which may flow from firm, yet just and kind treatment of a disobedient child, which is worthy of being borne in mind by every parent. It is as follows.
" The family were assembled in a back parlor. Mrs. Barclay was engaged in some domestic employment, to facilitate which Martha had just brought in a tub of scalding water. Charles, the eldest boy, with a patience most unboyish, was holding a skein of yarn for grandmamma to wind; Alice, the eldest girl, was arranging the dinner table in an adjoining room; Mary, the second, was amusing the baby at the window; Willie was saying his letters to aunt Betsey. All were busy: but the busiest was little Haddy, a sweet child of four years, who was sitting in the middle of the room on a low chair, and who. unobserved by the rest, and herself unconscious of wrong, was doing deadly mischief. She had taken a new: unfinished and very precious kite belonging to her brother Wallace, cut a hole in the centre, thrust into it the head of her pet Maltese kitten, and was holding it by its fore paws and making it dance on her lap; the little animal looking as demure and as formal as one of Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor in her ruff. At this critical |
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