"I'm not sure," said her sister, with a grave shake of the head, "I wish we could always have mamma by to tell us." "But mamma cannot be with you always, darlings," Elsie said, regarding them with yearning tenderness, "and so, as your papa and I have often told you, you must learn to think and decide for yourselves; about some things now, and about others as you grow older and wiser. Some things the Bible tells us plainly, and in regard to those we have nothing to do but obey." CHAPTER FOURTH. "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." --PROVERBS xxix. 15. Lucy, too, had a talk with her children, in which she begged them quite pathetically, not to disgrace her before the expected guests, Mr. Dinsmore especially, who was so very strict in his ideas of how children ought to be brought up, and how they should behave. They promised readily enough to "behave splendidly" and for a few days did so astonishingly well that, as she laughingly said, "she began to grow frightened lest they were becoming too good to live." But she need not have been alarmed; the reaction was not long in coming and was sufficient to relieve all apprehension that they were in immediate danger from an overplus of goodness. It began on the morning after Mr. Dinsmore's departure. Gertrude was late to breakfast, and when reproved by her mother answered in a manner so disrespectful as to quite astonish the young Travillas. They expected to see her banished at once from the table and the room; but her mother only looked grave and said in a tone of displeasure, "Gertrude, I cannot have you speak to me in that way--Don't do it again." "I don't care; you needn't scold so about every little trifle then," muttered the delinquent in an undertone, pulling the dish of meat toward her, helping herself and spilling the gravy on the clean tablecloth. Mrs. Ross did not seem to hear, she was spreading a piece of bread with the sweetest and freshest of butter, for Sophie. "I don't want it, I want waffles!" screamed the child, snatching up the bread the instant it was laid on her plate, and dashing it on to the carpet. "You are not well this morning, dear, and mamma thinks waffles might make her darling worse," said Lucy in a soothing tone. "Come now be a good baby, and eat the bread. Shall mamma spread another piece?" "No, no, naughty mamma! I'll jus' frow it on the floor if you do," cried the child, bursting into angry sobs. "Shall mamma have some toast made for her?" (coaxingly). "No, no! waffles! and butter on waffles, and 'lasses on butter, and sugar on 'lasses!" The mother laughed. It seemed to irritate the child still further; and she screamed louder than ever, slid down from her chair and stamped her foot with rage. Mrs. Ross was deeply mortified at the exhibition. "Pick her up and carry her to the nursery," she said to a servant.