I fear there is too much truth in this shrewd conclusion of Tom’s. We would not dare insult those of our own age, as we do our children. “That boy is growing sulky!” growls the father. “Did you see how glum he looked because I forgot a paltry plaything? I must take him in hand!” Then is the time for you, the mother of the wronged child, to speak up boldly in his behalf. Represent kindly, but candidly, to your irritated lord, the true value of the promised gift to the boy, and the greatness of the disappointment. “And after all, Papa, we can not expect Tom to exercise much self-control or self-denial yet. Remember, he is just five years old, and babies will be babies, you know!” If he is the husband so good a wife and mother deserves to have, he will not only acknowledge his fault to you, but seek out little Tom in his lonely chamber, and with a fond kiss tell him that “Papa spoke shortly awhile ago, because he was very tired and had had a great deal to trouble him to-day, but that he will surely remember to bring him a famous great ball to-morrow night.” There are times and circumstances in which it is very hard to remember that “babies will be babies.” Bessy, and Kitty, and Freddy are playing in the nursery adjoining your bedroom, where you lie in the agonies of “one of your headaches.” Every not-very-strong mother knows just what that means. You have told the little ones that you are in great pain, and having provided them with books, blocks, slates, and the like “sitting-still plays,” as Bessie calls them, and begging them to try and be quiet for half an hour, have withdrawn to your darkened retreat. They are loving, well-meaning children, and, for almost ten minutes, there is a refreshing season of calm. You are just forgetting torture in a soothing slumber, when, thump! bang! down comes the castle, the erection of which has kept Freddy still thus long. He would not be a boy if he did not hurrah at the crash; the girls laugh and clap their hands; and uproar is shortly the order of the hour. Don’t spring from your bed, and, confronting them with your pale face and bloodshot eyes, accuse them of disobedience and want of affection for you. They love you very dearly, and they “did mean to mind,” they will tell you penitently, “but they just forgot!” It is baby-nature to be forgetful, and I am glad that it is. The injuries, and slights, and wounded feeling of maturer years are enough to make of memory a whip of scorpions. I am thankful that, with the child, a kiss, a smile, a kind word will efface the recollection of the hasty reproof, the cross look, or--I blush for human nature as illustrated in some women while I write it!--the impatient blow that has wrung blood from the tender little heart. Thank Heaven that babies have short memories! so short that the suffering of cutting one tooth is clean forgotten before the next saws its jagged edge through the swollen gum.