“Stop, Ethel,” said Mary Gray authoritatively, “stop this moment, you are skipping notes.”

The child obeyed gladly, for music was by no means a passion with her, and she especially disliked practising when Mary’s sharp eye was upon her.

“I’m obliged to be severe with you, Ethel, for it never will do to allow you to play carelessly. You are worse than usual this morning, because Kittyleen is waiting in the dining-room. It’s very unfortunate that Kittyleen has to come here in your practising hour, and it makes it pretty hard for me; but what do you think or care about that? If you ever learn to play decently, Ethel Gray, ’twill be entirely owing to me, and your teacher says so. There! run off now and play with Kittyleen; but, remember, you’ll have to finish your practising this afternoon.”

Ethel made her escape, and Mary seated herself in the bay-window at her sewing with a deep sigh of responsibility. Her mother was ill; Julia, the eldest of the family, was confined to her room with headache, and the children had been left in Mary’s care this morning with strict charges to obey her.

“The children” were Philip, a boy of eight and a half, and Ethel, a little girl nearly six; but as Phil was now skating on the pond, and Ethel playing dolls in the dining-room with her young friend, Kittyleen Garland, Mary was free to pursue her own thoughts, and her work was soon lying idly in her lap, while she looked out of the window upon the white front yard facing the river.

There was no one in the room with her but her grandmother, who sat knitting in an easy-chair before the glowing coal fire. Grandma Gray did not seem to grow old. Father Time had not stolen away a single one of her precious graces. He had not dimmed her bright eyes or jarred her gentle voice; the wrinkles he had brought were only “ripples,” and the gray hair he had given her was like a beautiful silver crown.

Grandma looked up from her knitting; Mary looked up from her sewing. Their eyes met, and they both smiled.

“A penny for your thoughts, my child.”

“Oh, I was only thinking, grandma, it does seem as if something might be done to prevent people from calling me Flaxie Frizzle—I’m just worn out with it. It did very well when I was a little child; but now that I’m twelve years old, I ought to be treated with more respect. It’s very silly to call people by anything but their real, true names; don’t you think so? Oh, here comes the Countess Leonora!” cried Mary in a different tone, dropping her work, breaking her needle, and pricking her finger, all in a second of time.

“Who? I didn’t understand you, dear.”

“Oh, it’s only Fanny Townsend, grandma. We have fancy names for each other, we girls, and Fanny’s name is Countess Leonora,” cried Mary, quite unaware that there was anything “silly” in this, or that grandma was amused by her inconsistent remarks. The dear old lady smiled benevolently as a small figure in a brown cloak rushed in, breathless from running. It was not Fanny Townsend and Mary Gray, it seemed, who began to chat together in the bay-window, but the Countess Leonora, and her friend, Lady Dandelina Tangle. Lady Dandelina was telling the Countess that her mother and sister were ill, and that she was left in charge of the castle.

“Don’t you miss your brother Preston so much, Lady Dandelina?”

“Indeed I do, Countess; but young men are obliged to go to college, you know. And I can bear it better because my cousin, Fred Allen, of Hilltop, is with us. He will stay, I don’t know how long, and go to school. I only wish it was my sister Milly!”

“So do I, Lady Dandelina. Oh, I saw that old teacher of ours, Mr. Fling, as I was coming here. He stood on the hotel-piazza talking with Miss Pike.”

“Mr. Fling?” said Mary, laughing. She had dropped her work, for how could she sew without a needle?

“Yes; and said he, ‘How’s your health, Miss Fr-an-ce-s?’ as if I’d been sick. I like him out of school, Dandelina; but in school he used to be sort of hateful, don’t you know?”

“Not exactly hateful,” replied Mary, stealing a glance at grandma. “I call it troublesome.”

“Yes; how he would scold when we got under the seat to eat apples?”

“Oh, I never ate but one apple, Fan, I’m sure I never did. I was pretty small then, too. How queer it is to think of such old times!”

“Why, Flaxie, ’twas only last winter!”

“Are you sure, Fan? I thought ’twas ever so long ago.”

“Your reminiscences are very interesting, my dears,” said grandma, rising. “I wish I could hear more, but I shall be obliged to go up stairs now, and leave your pleasant company.”

As the serene old lady passed out at one door, little Ethel, very much excited, rushed in at another; but the girls, engrossed in conversation, did not look up, and she stood for some time unheeded behind Mary’s chair.

“I want to ask you, Flaxie—” she said.

“Mr. Fling and Miss Pike were talking about a spelling-school,” said Fanny, emerging from “old times” at a bound. “She’s going to have an old-fashioned one out in her school at Rosewood to-morrow night.”

“I want to ask you, Flaxie—” repeated Ethel.

“They ‘choose sides.’ Do you know what that is?”

“No, I’m sure I don’t. I wish Preston was here, and he’d take me out in the sleigh. Miss Pike would let our family go, of course.”

“I want to ask you—” said little Ethel again.

“Why, Ethel, child, I thought you were in the other room,” said Mary impatiently. “Don’t you see, I want to hear about the spelling-school; and it’s so thoughtful and kind of little girls to give big girls a chance to speak!”

But next moment, ashamed of her ill-nature, and remembering her maternal responsibility, she drew Ethel to her side and kissed her.

“Wait a minute, Leonora, till we find out what this means,” said she, surprised to see her usually quiet little sister in this wild state. “Tell me all about it, dear.”

Thus encouraged, Ethel broke forth indignantly, “Kittyleen is very disagreeable! And besides, she knocked me down!”

Fanny began to laugh. “Oh, what a Kittyleen!”

“Hush, Fan,” said Mary, warningly, drawing up her mouth like grandma’s silk “work-pocket.” “It doesn’t seem possible, Ethel. I never heard of Kittyleen’s behaving so before. What had you done to vex her?”

“I—I—knocked her down—first,” confessed Ethel, in low, faltering tones.

And Fanny laughed again.

“Fanny Townsend, do be quiet. I have the care of this child to-day. Ethel, where is Kittyleen?”

“Gone home.”

“Ah. Ethel, Ethel, it will be my duty to punish you. Fanny, can you be quiet?”

“You punish her? Oh dear, that’s too funny!”

“Yes, I have full authority to punish her if I choose,” said Mary, elevating her chin.

She was subject to little attacks of dignity; but instead of being duly impressed, Fanny only laughed the more, while shamefaced little Ethel hid her head and felt that she was trifled with.

“May I ask what amuses you, Miss Townsend?” said Mary, with increased dignity.

“Oh don’t, oh dear, what shall I do? You’re so queer, Flaxie Frizzle!”

“Well, if you go on in this way, I shall be obliged to take Ethel out of the room. Have you no judgment at all, Fanny Townsend?”

“Oh dear, oh dear, I shall die laughing! shall have to go home! If you could see just how you look, Flaxie Frizzle! Good-by. I can’t help it,” said Fanny, reeling out of the door.

Mary drew a long sigh. “Now come to me, Ethel. This is a dreadful thing, and you’re a perfectly awful child; but it will not do to speak to mother about it, when she has pneumonia, and a blister on the chest. She said I must take care of you.”

Ethel did not stir. Mary paused and gazed reproachfully across the room at her, not knowing in the least what to say next. She had never before undertaken a case of discipline, and rather wondered why it should be required of her now. But she had been given “full authority over the children,” and what did that mean if she was not to punish them when they did wrong?

To be sure Julia’s headache might be over to-morrow, and Julia could then attend to Ethel; but Mary was quite sure it would not do to wait an hour or a minute; the case must be attended to now. “It is my duty, and I will not shrink from it. I’ll try to act exactly as mamma always does,—not harsh, but sad and gentle,—Ethel, my child, come here.”

“Don’t want to,” said Ethel, approaching slowly and sullenly, drawing her little chair behind her.

“Not that way, dear; mamma never allows you to go all doubled up, dragging your chair like a snail with his house on his back. There, sit down and tell me about it. What made you so naughty?”

“My head aches. Don’t want to talk.”

“Were you playing dolls?”

“Yes. Pep’mint Drop is jiggly and won’t sit up.”

“Peppermint Drop is very old and has rheumatism, Ethel; she was my dolly before ever you were born.”

“Well, my head aches. Don’t want to talk.”

“But you must talk. I’m your mother to-day.”

“You?” Ethel looked up saucily, and Mary felt half inclined to laugh; but when one has the care of a young child one must be firm.

“Ethel, I am your mother to-day. What were you doing with those dolls?”

“Nothing! Kittyleen pulled off Pep’mint’s arm.”

“Yes, and then?”

“Then she was cross.”

“No, no. What did you do to her?”

“Tipped her over.”

“Ethel! Ethel!”

“Well, she tipped me over too.”

“This is perfectly dreadful!” exclaimed Mary, as solemnly as if she had never heard it before. And then she sat in deep thought. What would mamma have done in this case? Did Ethel’s head ache? Possibly. Her cheeks looked hot. Mamma was tender of the children when they were ill, and perhaps would not approve of shutting Ethel in the closet if she had taken cold.

“Ethel,” said Mary in natural tones, “I’m going to be very sweet and gentle. You’ve been extremely to blame, but perhaps Kittyleen may forgive you if you ask her.”

“H’m! Don’t want her to!”

“What! Don’t want her to forgive you?”

“No, I don’t; Kittyleen was bad herself!”

“But you were bad first, Ethel.”

“H’m! If I ask her to forgive me she’ll think she was good!”

Mary looked at stubborn Ethel sorrowfully. Oh, how hard it was to make children repent!

“Perhaps I’d better leave her by herself to think. Mamma does that sometimes.” Then aloud: “Ethel, I’m now going into the kitchen, and I wish you to sit here and think till I come back.”

“No, you mustn’t; my mamma won’t allow you to shut me up, Flaxie!”

“But I’m not shutting you up; I only leave you to think.”

“Don’t know how to think.”

“Yes, you do, Ethel, you think every time you wink.”

“Well, may I wink at the clock then?” asked the child, relenting, for it was one of her delights to sit and watch the minute-hand steal slowly over the clock’s white face.

“Yes, you may, if you’ll keep saying over and over, while it ticks, ‘I’ve been a naughty girl—a naughty girl; mamma’ll be sorry, mamma’ll be sorry.’”

“Well, I will, but hurry, Flaxie; don’t be gone long.”

In fifteen minutes Mary returned to find the child in the same spot; her eyes pinker than ever with weeping.

“Just the way I used to look when mamma left me alone,” thought Mary, encouraged.

“Well, Ethel,” with a grown-up folding of the hands which would have convulsed Fanny Townsend. “Well, have you been thinking, dear?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell mamma about it; I shan’t tell you.”

“Mamma is very sick, my child.”

“Then I’ll tell Ninny.” Ninny was the children’s pet name for Julia.

“No, Ninny has a headache. I’m your mamma this afternoon. And I won’t be cross to you, darling,” added Mary, with humility, recalling some of her past lectures to this little sister.

“Well,” said Ethel faintly, with her apron between her teeth. “I wasn’t very bad to Kittyleen, but if she wants to forgive me I’ll let her.”

“O sweetest, you make me so happy!”

“Don’t want to make you happy,” returned Ethel disdainfully; “don’t care anything about you! But mamma’s sick. And you—won’t you write her a letter?”

“Write mamma a letter?”

“No, Kittyleen, write it with vi’let ink, won’t you, Flaxie?”

The note was very short and written just as Ethel dictated it:

Ethel meant just this, no more, no less. She was sorry; still, if she had done wrong so had Kittyleen; if she needed forgiveness Kittyleen needed it also.

“Now, put something in the corner,” said she, looking on anxiously, as Mary directed the envelope. “You always put something in the corner of your notes, Flaxie; I’ve seen you, and seen you.”

“Do I? Oh yes, sometimes I put ‘kindness of Ethel’ in the corner, but that is when you carry the note.”

“Put it there now.”

“But are you going to carry the note?”

“No, Dodo will carry it if I give her five kisses.”

“Then, I’ll write ‘Kindness of Dora.’”

“No, no, I’m the one that’s kind, not Dodo,” insisted the child.

And “Kindness of Ethel” it had to be in the corner in large, plain letters.

Dora laughed when she read it, and Mary smiled indulgently.

Kittyleen did not smile, however, for she did not know there was any mistake. She accepted Ethel’s doubtful apology with joy, and made her nurse Martha write in reply, “I forgive you.” And in the left-hand corner of her envelope were the words “Kindness of Kittyleen,” for she supposed that was the correct thing, and she never allowed Ethel to be more fashionable than herself if she could possibly help it.

Mary felt that on the whole her first case of discipline had resulted successfully, and was impatient for to-morrow to come, that her mother might hear of it and give her approval.