But James managed the case differently. After going about the room for a few minutes with the children, and looking with them at their various treasures, and admiring what they seemed to admire, but without finding any fault, he sat down before the fire and took the children upon his lap—one upon each knee—and began to talk to them. Ann had one of her picture-books in her hand, some of the leaves torn, and the rest defaced with dog's-ears.
"Now, Walter," said James, "I'm going to give you some advice. I am going to advise you what to do and how to act when you go to college. By-and-by you will grow to be a young man, and will then, perhaps, go to college."
The idea of growing to be a young man and going to college was very pleasing to Walter's imagination, and brought his mind into what may be called a receptive condition—that is, into a state to receive readily, and entertain with favor, the thoughts which James was prepared to present.
James then went on to draw a very agreeable picture of Walter's leaving home and going to college, with many details calculated to be pleasing to his cousin's fancy, and came at length to his room, and to the circumstances under which he would take possession of it. Then he told him of the condition in which different scholars kept their respective rooms—how some were always in disorder, and every thing in them topsy-turvy, so that they had no pleasant or home-like aspect at all; while in others every thing was well arranged, and kept continually in that condition, so as to give the whole room, to every one who entered it, a very charming appearance.
"The books on their shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all standing up in order—those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann, and go to your shelves, and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to show him what I mean."
Ann jumped down, and ran with great alacrity to arrange the books according to the directions. When she had arranged one shelf, she was proceeding to do the same with the next, but James said she need not do any more then. She could arrange the others, if she pleased, at another time, he said. "But come back now," he added, "and hear the rest of the advice."
"I advise you to keep your book-shelves in nice order at college," he continued; "and so with your apparatus and your cabinet. For at college, you see, you will perhaps have articles of philosophical apparatus, and a cabinet of specimens, instead of playthings. I advise you, if you should have such things, to keep them all nicely arranged upon their shelves."
Here James turned his chair a little, so that he and the children could look towards the cabinet of playthings. Walter climbed down from his cousin's lap and ran off to that side of the room, and there began hastily to arrange the playthings.
"Yes," said James, "that is the way. But never mind that now. I think you will know how to arrange your philosophical instruments and your cabinet very nicely when you are in college; and you can keep your playthings in order in your room here, while you are a boy, if you please. But come back now and hear the rest of the advice."
So Walter came back and took his place again upon James's knee.