"I wouldn't like to be thought perfect," she said slowly. "I sometimes think that mother would think far more of father if he saw some faults in her." "I am quite puzzled," I said; "you grumble because I analyse people and now you grumble because your father doesn't. What do you mean, child?" But she shook her head helplessly. "Oh, I don't know," she cried, and she sat for a long time in deep thought. As I sat by her side in the picture-house tea-room I recollected a saying of her's one day last week. I was sitting at the bothy door reading _The New Age_, and at my feet lay _The Nation_ and _The New Statesman_. She picked up _The Nation_ and glanced at its pages. "I don't know why you waste your money on papers like that," she said petulantly. "You spend eighteenpence a week on papers, and father only gets _John Bull_ and _The People's Journal_." It suddenly came to me that Margaret was not thinking of the money side of the question at all; what annoyed her was the thought that these papers were a symbol of a world that she did not know. And now I wonder whether woman is not always jealous of a man's work. It is a long time since I read _Antony and Cleopatra_, but I half fancy that Cleopatra was much more jealous of Antony's work than of his wife. VI. Dickie Gibson cut me dead to-night, and I think that Jim Jackson will one day look the other way when I pass. It is very sad, and I feel to-night that all my work was in vain. I cannot, however, blame Macdonald this time, for Dickie has left the school. I feel somewhat grieved at not being able to lay the fault at Macdonald's door. I should blame myself if I honestly could, but I cannot, for Dickie was a lad who loved the school. I recollect the morning when we arrived to find a huge stone cast in the middle of the pond. "It's been some of the big lads," said Dickie. "But why?" I asked. "Why should they do a dirty trick like that? Would you do a thing like that, Dickie, after you had left the school?" He thought for a minute. "Aye," he said slowly, "if Aw was with bigger lads and they did it Aw wud do it too." I suppose that if I had been a really great man I might have conquered the spirit of the village. I was only a poor pioneer striving to make these bairns happier and better. Dickie's cutting me proves that I was not good enough to lead him away from the atmosphere of the village. I used to forget about the homes; I used to forget that many a child had to listen to harsh criticisms of my methods. I marvel now that they were so nice at school. I wonder whether we could not form a Board to enquire into the upbringing of children. We might call it the Board of Parental Control. It would bring parents before it and examine them. Parents convicted of stupidity would be ordered to hand over their children to a Playyard School, and each child would be so taught that it could take in hand the education of its parents when it was seventeen.