Mania did not speak for a moment. In her heart she said, "Lord help me to make this plain to my little girls."
"Did Meg have to wash?" she asked them.
"Yes," said Lucy. "If not, she would have to—"
"Bear the punishment," said mama. "You say, Lucy, that dada and I do just what we choose, and that is quite true. But if we choose to do wrong, then we have to be punished too, and the punishment is far worse than any that dada or I can give you, for it comes from God.
"Little children do not always know right from wrong, so in order to help them and make right easy, God gives them parents and teachers to praise them when they are good"—and here mama laid her hand on Meg's head—"or else to punish them when they are naughty.
"My two little girls may do just as they choose, as long as they choose to do what is right, and then when they are big and there is no mama to tell them all the time what to do, I hope they will do right of themselves."
