"Yes; and this sort of peculation in a child might run into great criminality in an adult. You can't think what pains I have taken to keep the children free from this evil habit."
"One point is to keep them so busy and so happy, that they will not have time to hanker after forbidden dainties. Another is just what I presume you do: show sympathy with them in their frailties; tell them to come and ask for the luxuries they are in danger of appropriating feloniously, and as far as it is good for them, indulge them."
"Yes, I do that; yet isn't there danger of pampering gluttony?"
"No danger that a sensible woman, like you, will do that. You will easily lead the children to despise gluttony. And want of sympathy with them in their youthful longings after good things, will be sure to engender habits of deceit and dishonesty."
"What power the little creatures have to pain us," said Belle. "Oh, how it hurt me when I saw that bit of sugar! How it hurt!"
"My dear Belle," replied Mrs. Grey, "I considered you a very conscientious child, but you are a far more conscientious woman. Some might think you take this trespass of little Mabel's too much to heart; but I do not think so. If all young mothers looked at sin as you do, our eyes would not be assailed every time we take up our morning journal with the staring words, 'Embezzlement!' 'Fraud!' 'Burglary!' 'Murder!'"
"But, mamma, though my children have had their little faults and foibles, this is the first dishonorable act I have ever met with among them. There were certain things I was determined to have—obedience and uprightness."
"By uprightness you do not mean perfection?"
"No, I mean by it just what you do: freedom from everything mean and petty; a tendency upward, instead of tendency downward."
"And don't you see that this desire has come from God, and that He has responded to it? Don't you know that your children are wonderful children?"