“And thus we go on, pulling Kitty through her lessons somehow; but it is a weariness to herself and all of us, and I doubt if the child learns anything except by bright flashes. But you have no notion how quick the little monkey is. After idling through a lesson she will overtake us at a bound at the last moment, and thus escape the wholesome shame of being shown up as the dunce of our little party. “Kitty’s dawdling ways, her restless desire for change of occupation, her always wandering thoughts, lead to a good deal of friction, and spoil our schoolroom party, which is a pity, for I want the children to enjoy their lessons from the very first. What do you think the child said to me yesterday in the most coaxing pretty way? ‘There are so many things nicer than lessons! Don’t you think so, mother?’ Yes, dear aunt, I see you put your finger on those unlucky words ‘coaxing, pretty way,’ and you look, if you do not say, that awful sentence of yours about sin being bred of allowance. Isn’t that it? It is quite true; we are in fault. Those butterfly ways of Kitty’s were delicious to behold until we thought it time to set her to work, and then we found that we should have been training her from her babyhood. Well, ‘If you break your plaything yourself, dear, Don’t you cry for it all the same? I don’t think it is such a comfort To have only oneself to blame.’ “So, like a dear, kind aunt, don’t scold us, but help us to do better. Is Kitty constant to anything? you ask. Does she stick to any of the ‘_many_ things so much nicer than lessons’? I am afraid that here, too, our little girl is ‘unstable as water.’ And the worst of it is, she is all agog to be at a thing, and then, when you think her settled to half-an-hour’s pleasant play, off she is like any butterfly. She says her, ‘How doth the little busy bee,’ dutifully, but when I tell her she is not a bit like a busy bee, but rather like a foolish, flitting butterfly, I’m afraid she rather likes it, and makes up to the butterflies as if they were akin to her, and were having just the good time she would prefer. But you must come and see the child to understand how volatile she is. “‘Oh, mother, _please_ let me have a good doll’s wash this afternoon; I’m quite unhappy about poor Peggy! I really think she _likes_ to be dirty!’ “Great preparations follow in the way of little tub, and soap, and big apron; the little laundress sits down, greatly pleased with herself, to undress her dirty Peggy; but hardly is the second arm out of its sleeve, than, _presto!_ a new idea; off goes Kitty to clean out her doll’s-house, deaf to all nurse’s remonstrances about ‘nice hot water,’ and ‘poor dirty Peggy.’