“A friend has lately bought a house, on whose staircase is a beautiful stained glass window; but its value is rather spoiled for her by the fact that in its centre are the initials of the late owners of the house, not interesting people in any way, but very commonplace folk who made money by speculations. One day a little boy-visitor was admiring the window, and asked about the initials. My friend explained them to him, and then, turning to another visitor, laughingly said, ‘We must get somebody to throw a stone through that pane.’ Presently she noticed that the little boy kept very closely to her side, and by-and-by he whispered, ‘Mrs. Gray, I can hit very well. I’ll throw a stone at that window. I’ll do it to-day if you like.’ ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, ‘that would never do at all. We must get it done properly some other time.’ He was disappointed, but said no more then. When he was taking leave, however, he whispered, ‘Mrs. Gray, when do you want that stone thrown? You’ll ask me, won’t you? You won’t let anybody else do it?’ Now if he had not been a child accustomed to free speech, he might have taken that lady’s jest in earnest and have thrown the stone, which would likely have missed its aim and done incalculable mischief. Mrs. Gray would have quite forgotten her remark. Overwhelmed by his failure and by censures unaccountable to him which would have fallen upon him, he would, according to all the precedents of childish criminals, have ‘reserved his defence,’ and he would have been set down as a mischievous monkey, if not a malignant little wretch, for making such return for pleasant hospitality.” “I suppose too,” said Lucy, “that every time we let a child talk a matter out and help it to follow the explanations we give, we are really unconsciously training its mind to think out things for itself, and not to rest content at any point where it is not really satisfied.”