It happened that, as Mrs Mowbray was one evening smoothing Adeline's flowing curls, and stroking her ruddy cheek, she exclaimed triumphantly, raising Adeline to the glass, 'See the effect of temperance and low living! If you were accustomed to eat meat, and butter, and drink any thing but water, you would not look so healthy, my love, as you do now. O the excellent effects of a vegetable diet!' The artless girl, whose conscience smote her during the whole of this speech, hung her blushing head on her bosom:--it was the confusion of guilt; and Mrs Mowbray perceiving it earnestly demanded what it meant, when Adeline, half crying, gave a full explanation. Nothing could exceed the astonishment and mortification of Mrs Mowbray; but, though usually tenacious of her opinions, she in this case profited by the lesson of experience. She no longer expected any advantage from clandestine measures:--but Adeline, her appetites regulated by a proper exertion of parental authority, was allowed to sit at the well-furnished table of her mother, and was precluded, by a judicious and open indulgence, from wishing for a secret and improper one; while the judicious praises which Mrs Mowbray bestowed on Adeline's ingenuous confession endeared to her the practice of truth, and laid the foundation of a habit of ingenuousness which formed through life one of the ornaments of her character--Would that Mrs Mowbray had always been equally judicious! Another great object of anxiety to her was the method of clothing children; whether they should wear flannel, or no flannel; light shoes, to give agility to the motions of the limbs; or heavy shoes, in order to strengthen the muscles by exertion;--when one day, as she was turning over a voluminous author on this subject, the nurserymaid hastily entered the room, and claimed her attention, but in vain; Mrs Mowbray went on reading aloud:-- 'Some persons are of opinion that thin shoes are most beneficial to health; others, equally worthy of respect, think thick ones of most use: and the reasons for these different opinions we shall class under two heads--' 'Dear me, ma'am!' cried Bridget, 'and in the meantime Miss Adeline will go without any shoes at all.' 'Do not interrupt me, Bridget,' cried Mrs Mowbray, and proceeded to read on. 'In the first place, it is not clear, says a learned writer, whether children require any clothing at all for their feet.' At this moment Adeline burst open the parlour door, and, crying bitterly, held up her bleeding toes to her mother. 'Mamma, mamma!' cried she, 'you forget to send for a pair of new shoes for me; and see, how the stones in the gravel have cut me!' This sight, this appeal, decided the question in dispute. The feet of Adeline bleeding on a new Turkey carpet proved that some clothing for the feet was necessary; and even Mrs Mowbray for a moment began to suspect that a little experience is better than a great deal of theory. CHAPTER II