“Yes, you may, if you’ll keep saying over and over, while it ticks, ‘I’ve been a naughty girl—a naughty girl; mamma’ll be sorry, mamma’ll be sorry.’”

PUNISHING ETHEL.—[Page 17.]

“Well, I will, but hurry, Flaxie; don’t be gone long.”

In fifteen minutes Mary returned to find the child in the same spot; her eyes pinker than ever with weeping.

“Just the way I used to look when mamma left me alone,” thought Mary, encouraged.

“Well, Ethel,” with a grown-up folding of the hands which would have convulsed Fanny Townsend. “Well, have you been thinking, dear?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell mamma about it; I shan’t tell you.”

“Mamma is very sick, my child.”

“Then I’ll tell Ninny.” Ninny was the children’s pet name for Julia.