"I thought so," nodded Athalie; "I soaked him for doing it."
"Who was he?"
"Oh, it was that fresh Harry Eldon. I told him if he ever tried to get fresh with me again I'd kill him.... Mamma?"
"Yes?"
"All that about poor old Mr. Manners isn't true, is it?"
Her mother smiled. The children had been taught to leave a morsel on their plates "for manners"; and to impress it upon them their mother had invented a story about a poor old man named Manners who depended upon what they left, and who crept in to eat it after they had retired from table.
So leaving something "for Manners" had been thoroughly and successfully inculcated, until the habit was formed. And now Athalie was the last of the children to discover the gentle fraud practised upon her.
"I'm glad, anyway," concluded the child. "I never thought we left him enough to eat."
Her mother said: "I shall tell you only truths after this. You are old enough to understand reason, now, and to reason a little yourself."