It really was excellent training for her; thorough good discipline, as Cousin Jane would say; especially as it was interspersed with “spells of Bird-Cornering,” during which she sojourned with the Peon and me. For the period of discipline always followed an accustomed round. It began with a Cousin Jane all severity, lynx-eyed to drag poor Caro’s delinquencies to light and overcome them by unsparing criticism. But Caro has always made play of everything, finding by the talisman of her own happy heart the hidden beauty, or laughter, of the ugliest and solemnest things. She did all Cousin Jane found for her to do—which is saying a good deal—not only cheerfully, but with whole-souled delight, as if it were her very meat and drink. Doing it that way, she did it beyond criticism; and Cousin Jane would begin to relax, unwillingly, unable to find a flaw, yet with an uneasy feeling that something must be wrong, or Caro couldn’t possibly be enjoying herself so much. When she set herself to mortify Caro’s girlish vanity the child met her more than half-way. She did her best to “slick” her curls, and donned shapeless gingham aprons as joyously as though they were made of jewels and lace. Cousin Jane would find herself being mollified to the point of indulgence in spite of herself; and about that time Caro would come flying into the yard at Bird Corners and drop fluttering beside me, her eyes shining with the pure joy of living and the love of living things. “I’m back again, Mammy Lil,” she would laugh, whirling about on one toe. “Cousin Jane hasn’t scolded me for four days, and yesterday she almost patted my head; so I knew she thought I’d had training enough for the present, and I’d be coming back home in a jiffy. They’re so good to me in their funny way I’m most ashamed to be glad to come home to you—but I am, all the same. Where’s Josie? I’ve made three new petticoats and a night gown for her, out of muslin strong enough to climb trees.” The truth was that when Caro came back to me it was because Cousin Jane had detected in her own soul symptoms of the child’s being made an idol: she had to get rid of her to recover her own moral poise. But she still intended to do her full duty by her: so when Caro was fifteen she was sent to boarding school, to remain at least five years. By that time Cousin Jane hoped to have re-established her own imperturbability without unduly exposing her charge to the dangerous influences of Bird Corners.