"Rather hard lines on us, isn't it? She eat an apple, and sin, and death, and colic--I never eat an apple in consequence--_colic_ came into the world, and cider, as a consequence--the worst drink ever invented by the devil. And now go on and learn your Church Catechism thoroughly, and you'll both turn into angels. Upon my life, I think I see the feathers beginning to sprout from your shoulders already. You'll have wings, you know, if all goes right, and tails for anything I know." The little boy looked in his face perplexed and frightened--the little girl, answering his haggard grin with an attempted smile, showed also bewilderment and dismay in her eyes. They were both longing for the return of their aunt. Childish nature, which is only human nature without its scarf skin, is always afraid of irony. It is not its power, but its treachery that is dreadful--the guise of friendship hiding a baleful purpose underneath. One might fancy the seasoned denizens of Gehenna welcoming, complimenting, and instructing new comers with these profound derisions. How children delight in humour! how they wince and quail under irony! Be it ever so rudely fashioned and clumsily handled, still it is to them a terrible weapon. If children are to be either ridiculed or rebuked, let it be honestly, in direct terms. We should not scare them with this jocularity of devils. Having thus amused himself with the children for a time, he unlocked his leather bag, took out two or three papers, ordered the little girl to snuff the candle, and pulled it across the table to the corner next himself, and, sitting close by, tried to read, holding the letter almost in the flame, screwing his white eyebrows together, and shifting his position, and that of the candle also, with very little regard to the studious convenience of the children. He gave it up. The red and smoky light tried his eyes too severely. So, not well pleased, he locked his letters up again. "Cat's eyes--owls! How the devil they read by it passes my comprehension. Any more candles here--hey?" he demanded with a sudden sharpness that made the children start. "Three, please sir." "Get 'em." "On the nail in the closet, please sir." "Get 'em, d--n it!" "Closet's locked, please sir. Aunt has the key." "Ha!" he snarled, and looked at the children as if he would like to pick a quarrel with them. "Does your aunt allow you to let the fire out on nights like this--hey? You're a charming young lady, _you_--and this young gentleman, in manners and appearance, everything the proudest aunt could desire; but I'm curious to know whether either one or the other is of the slightest earthly use; and secondly, whether she keeps a birch-rod in that closet--hey?--and now and then _flogs_ you--ha, ha, ha! The expense of the rod is trifling, the pain not worth mentioning, and soon over, but the moral effects are admirable, better and more durable--take my word for it--than all the catechisms in Paternoster Row."