Grace interposes pertly, "You can't have any--mamma says you can't;" Essie passionately protests, "I will;" mamma sharply interposes, "You shall not;" a burst of tears from Essie, and a smothered titter from Grace, then Essie passionately pushes back her plate, and refuses to touch another mouthful; whereon mamma asserts her authority, and sternly orders her to resume her biscuit and chicken under pain of banishment. The sobbing child does not, cannot, _I_ think, obey, and, at the end of an ominous silence, mamma motions John to remove her from the table, which is effected after violent resistance and struggling, and amid a tempest of screams and protestations, exit Essie in the arms of John. It was well that my aunt did not order me to resume my breakfast. After that little episode, I am afraid I should have been unable to obey, and I should not have liked to have been carried out in the arms of John. Josephine exclaimed upon the nuisance of crying children; Grace laughed slily, as if she thought it capital fun; mamma sighed over the strange perverseness and dreadful temper of that child; but my heart ached for the wretched little exile. How Félicie would gloat over her disgrace, I knew; how indigestion, injustice, and mortification, would bring on a fit of the sulks that would last half the day, and pave the way for the repetition of a similar scene at lunch. Perhaps because I had been a willful, sensitive, and passionate child myself, I knew how to appreciate the disadvantages under which poor little Essie labored. I knew what exquisite tenderness and gentleness were necessary to guard that sensitiveness from turning into the very gall of bitterness, and that quick temper from becoming the uncontrollable and damning passion that would blight her whole life. More watchful care, more prayerful earnestness, does such a child's rearing require, than if she had been laid upon her mother's love, a moaning cripple, or a blind and helpless sufferer. Just as soul is more precious than body, so is the responsibility heavier, the task more awful, of training and molding such a sensitive nature, to whose morbid fancy a cold repulse is a cruel blow, and an impatient word a rankling wound. The tenderest and most yearning love should surround and guard such a child's career, putting aside with careful hand the snares and trials that beset the way of life, till the maturing judgment shall have learned to control the exaggerated fancy. The winds of heaven should not be suffered to visit too roughly such a restless and unquiet heart, till the uncertain mists of dawn and early morning have melted before the clear and certain day. Between the rough and torturing world and the scared and shrinking soul, the mother's love should interpose, shielding, soothing, reassuring. God meant it to be so; may His pity be the guard of the little ones, whom death, the world, the flesh, or the devil, have defrauded of their right!