"I reckon they are not the worst children in the world," she replied, rather warmly.
"I should be sorry if they were. But they are not the best either, by a long way, although naturally as good children as are seen anywhere. It is your bad management that is spoiling them."
"My management!"
"Frankly, Sarah, I am compelled to affirm that it is. I have been in your house, now, for three or four months, and must say that I am surprised that your children are as good as they are. Don't be angry! Don't be fretted with me as you are with every thing in them that doesn't please you. I am old enough to hear reason as well as to talk reason. Let us go back to a point on which I wished to fix your attention, but from which we digressed. In trying to correct Mary's habit of rummaging in your work-basket, you boxed her ears, and stormed at her in a most unmotherly way. Did it do any good? No; for in ten minutes she was at the same work again. For this I talked to her kindly, and endeavoured to make her sensible that it was wrong to disturb your basket."
"And much good it will do!" Mrs. Elder did not feel very amiable.
"We shall see," said Uncle William, in his calm way. "Now I propose that we both go out of this room, and let Mary come into it, and be here alone for half an hour. My word for it, she doesn't touch your work-basket."
"And my word for it, she goes to it the first thing."
"Notwithstanding you boxed her ears for the same fault so recently?"
"Yes, and notwithstanding you reasoned with her, and talked to her so softly but a few moments since."
"Very well. The experiment is worth making, not to see who is right, but to see if a gentler mode of government than the one you have adopted will not be much better for your children. I am sure that it will."