“Helen!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, changing her seat so as to take Mrs. Lawrence’ hand, “I’d die for your children at any time, if it would do them any good.”
“I believe you, you dear girl,” said Mrs. Lawrence, recovering her natural manner, and not entirely unashamed of her outburst of feeling, “but you don’t understand it all, as you will some day. The children trouble me worse than they ever did or can any one else; but it isn’t their fault, and I know it, and can endure it. No one else can. I am sure I don’t know how to blame people who are annoyed by juvenile pranks.”
“Then what’s to be done with youngsters in general?” Mrs. Burton asked.
“They’re to be kept at home,” said Mrs. Lawrence, “under the eye of father or mother continually, until they are large enough to trust; and the age at which they’re to be trusted should not be determined by the impatience of their parents, either.”
“Don’t be frightened, Allie,” said Tom. “Helen had some of these notions before she had any boys of her own to defend.”
“They’re certainly not the result of my children’s happy experiences with the best aunt and uncle that ever lived,” said Mrs. Lawrence, caressing her adopted sister’ hand. “If you could hear the boys’s praises of you both, you’d grow insufferably vain, and imagine yourselves born to manage orphan asylums.”
“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, the immediate result of her utterance being the partial withdrawal of Mrs. Lawrence’ hand. “There are only two children in the family——”
“Three,” corrected Mrs. Lawrence promptly.
“Oh, bless me, what have I said!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Well, there are only three children in the family, and they are not enough to found an asylum, while I feel utterly unfitted to care for any one child that I don’t know very well and love very dearly.”
“Is it possible that any one can learn so much in so short a time?” exclaimed Tom Lawrence. “Harry, my boy, you’re to be congratulated.”