‘Then you should not behave as such,’ Mrs. Severn said, holding out her hand to him with a smile: and then the mere accident of the moment brought him beside little Frank on the hearth-rug, as he had thought, with a little sentimental impulse, of placing himself. He sat down on the child’s stool, and held out his hands to the fire, and looked up at the padrona’s face, which shone out in glimpses by the cheerful firelight. Sometimes little Edith, with her wreath of hair, would come between him and her mother like a little golden, rose-tinted, cloud; sometimes the fitful blaze would decline for a moment, and throw the whole scene into darkness. But Mrs. Severn did not change her attitude, or put down the child from her lap, or ring for the lamp, on Laurie’s arrival. He came in without breaking the spell,--without disturbing the calm of the moment. And after an absence of more than a week, and some days’ work and seclusion, it is not wonderful if he felt as if he had suddenly come home. ‘This would not be a bad time to lecture you, as I am going to do,’ said the padrona. ‘He has been very naughty, children; he ought to be put in the corner. Let us make up our minds what we will do to him, now we have him here.’ ‘Give him some bad sums to do, mamma,’ said little Harry, whose life was made a burden to him in that way; ‘or make him write out fifty lines; and don’t tell him any stories. What have you done, Mr. Renton? I want to know.’ ‘Give him a bad mark in the pantomime book,’ said Frank. Now, the pantomime-book was a ledger of the severest penalties; the bad marks disabled a sinner altogether from the enjoyment of the highest of pleasures, and was as good as a pantomime lost. The savage suggestion awoke the sympathy of little Edie on her mother’s knee. ‘What has he done?’ said Edie. ‘Poor Laurie! But mamma won’t listen to these cruel boys. Mamma listens to me. I am the little princess in the new picture. Mamma, I love Laurie. Make him go down on his knees and beg pardon, and I know he will never do it any more.’