But Lady Burnside said gravely, "Willy, I wish you would try to please me by being more considerate and gentle to your sisters."
"Ella is so whiny piny! she is always saying 'Don't', and 'You shan't!'"
"Not always, Willy. Do you remember how ready she was to give up her turn to you to play draughts with Constance last evening? Do you remember how kindly she helped you to find those places in the map for Mr. Martyn?"
"Yes, grannie," Willy said. "I will go and tell her I am sorry I have been so cross; but she is provoking, and you don't know how provoking."
"Well, making all allowance for that, I still think that you should never forget you are a boy and she is a little girl, and should for that very reason be gentle and forbearing, because it is a rule, which all noble-hearted people recognise, that the weak should be protected by the strong."
Willy gave his grandmother a rather rough kiss, and said,—
"I'll go and stroke Ella the right way, and when I come back you will tell me about the cousin."
When Willy was gone, Constance laid down the book she had been reading, and said,—
"I do not envy Irene Packingham coming here. Willy is an awful tease, and if she is a prim little thing, turned out by a boarding-school, she will have a bad time of it."
"I think you are hard upon Willy, dear Constance," was the gentle reply. "He is a very high-spirited boy, very much like what your father was; and then Willy has the great disadvantage of having no brother near his own age."