"Children are children, you know," was Mr. Manly's quiet reply.
"Yes, but children may be made to behave, if any pains at all be taken with them. It is really unpardonable for any one to let a child like that worry visitors as he did us this evening."
"Few children of his age, Mr. Little, unless of a remarkably quiet and obedient disposition, are much better than Pelby's little boy."
"As to that, Mr. Manly," broke in Mrs. Little, "there's our Tommy, a fine boy of twelve, as you know. He never acted like that when he was a child. I never had a bit of trouble with him when we had company. We could bring him down into the parlour when he was of Henry Pelby's age, and he would go round and kiss all the ladies so sweetly, and then go off to bed, like a little man, as he was."
"Ah, Mrs. Little, you forget," said Mr. Manly, laughing.
"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Manly. I don't forget these things. We could do any thing with Tommy at his age, and it was because we managed him rightly. You can do any thing with children you please."
"Indeed, then, Mrs. Little, it is more than I can say," remarked Mrs. Manly. "If my children could be made any thing at all of, they would have been different from what they are; and yet, I believe," she added, with a feeling of maternal pride, "they are not the worst children I have ever seen."
"Good-nights" were now exchanged, and, after Mr. and Mrs. Manly had walked a few steps, the former said,
"Well, this is a curious world that we live in. Ten years ago, Pelby, then a trim bachelor, as nice and particular as any of the tribe, said, in allusion to Tommy Little—'If that were my child, I would half kill him but what I'd make a better boy of him!'"
"He did?"