"Dear Elizabeth," she replied, "how true that is; and yet how few mothers realise it. Children should be controlled solely by love; I am sure I shall have no trouble at all with those two dear little boys." And so it was settled. In less than a week's time Mrs. Stanford had departed upon her long journey. At the last she clung somewhat wistfully to Elizabeth. "I'm almost afraid to go and leave the children," she said. "Of course I feel every confidence in Miss Tripp; but you know, Betty, how resourceful Robert is, and how---- But you'll have an eye to them all; won't you? And telegraph us if--if anything should happen?" Elizabeth promised everything. But she was conscious of a great weight of responsibility as the carriage containing the light-hearted Stanfords rolled away down the street. "Oh, Evelyn!" she said; "do watch Robbie carefully, and be sure and call me if the least thing is the matter with the baby." Miss Tripp smiled confidently. "I'm not the least bit worried," she said. "Little Robert loves me devotedly already, and I am sure will be most tractable and obedient; and Livingstone is a very healthy child. Besides, you know, I have mother, who knows everything about children." She went back into her newly acquired domain, feeling that a sympathising Providence had been very good to her, and resolving to do her full duty, as she conceived it, by the temporarily motherless Stanford children. In pursuance of this resolve she repaired at once to the nursery when the Stanfords had taken leave of their offspring, after presenting them with a parcel of new toys upon which the children had fallen with shouts of joy. "I really could not go away and leave them looking wistfully out of the windows after us," Mrs. Stanford had declared, with tears in her bright brown eyes. "I should think of them that way every minute while we were gone, and imagine them crying after me." "They won't cry, dear Mrs. Stanford," Evelyn had assured her. "I shall devote every moment of my time to them and keep them just as happy as wee little birdlings in a nest." The youngest Stanford child was peacefully engaged in demolishing a book of bright pictures, while his elder brother was trying the blade of a glittering jack-knife on the wood of the mantel-piece, when Miss Tripp re-entered the room. "Oh, my dears!" exclaimed their new guardian with a tactful smile, "I wouldn't do that!" The Stanford infant paid no manner of attention to the mildly worded request; but the older boy turned and stared resentfully at her. "This is my jack-knife," he announced conclusively; "my daddy gave it to me to whittle with, an' I'm whittlin'." "But your father wouldn't like you to cut the mantel-shelf; don't you know he wouldn't, dear?" "I'm goin' to whittle it jus' the same, 'cause you ain't my mother; you ain't even my gran'ma."