"Poor child!" said Nannie. "How do we know it wasn't Abel's fault? He may have been an aggravating child; some are born so, and I've seen a child, many a time, go on at another till he's almost worried him into a frenzy just saying, 'I see you,' over and over again, does it sometimes. Children will do it, of course; besides, there were no commandments then, and you can't expect children to do right without rules and regulations. That's all discipline is, rules and regulations, which is commandments, so to speak." "You think, then, Nannie," I said, "that Eve forgot to tell Cain not to kill Abel?" "Well," said Nannie, "Eve had a lot to do; we can't blame her. She must have had a lot to do. Think what a worry Adam must have been: he had no experience, no nothing; he couldn't be a help to a woman, brought up as he was, always thinking of himself as first, as of course he was! Now, there's Parker--he is a good husband: he rolls the beef on Sunday to save Mrs. Parker trouble, and prepares the vegetables; he is a good husband, no trouble in the house whatsoever. He never brings in dirt, Mrs. Parker says, wipes his feet ever so before he comes, on the finest day just the same." I thought the comparison a little hard on Adam, but still I didn't say so, and Nannie reverted to the modern nurse, after informing me that men and horses were sacred beasts! "Well, about nurses, 'Mrs.' before a nurse's name doesn't soothe a fretful child, nor make her more patient or loving. It might make her less patient, if she took to wishing the 'Mrs.' was real instead of sham; some women are like that, all for marrying. I dare say," said Nannie, when going over her experiences, "my face did look blank when I missed all my treasures, but f said nothing, although it was a blow when I thought of all the lovely times you had had with that rocking-horse. You remember the hole in it? Well, that was cut out solid because of all the things that were inside that rocking-horse; almost all the things that had been lost for years we found in that horse. My gold chain, for one thing, to say nothing of other things. The tail came out, and that is how the things got lost. The boys, always up to mischief, just popped anything they came across down that hole and put in the tail again, so no one knew anything about it. Well, then, your father lost something very special, I forget what, and there was a to-do! And Jane said she believed there was a power of things down that rocking-horse, so we got Jane's sister's young man, who was a carpenter, or by way of being, to come and cut out a square block out of the underneath--well, the stomach--of that horse--and then we found things! Things we had lost for years. Then we put the block back, and no one would have noticed particularly, not unless they had looked. Well, that's what I missed, the rocking-horse, but still I said nothing. Then we had tea out of new cups, and still I said nothing, because tea-cups will get broken, and