am to send him to school, I suppose, to learn to despise his mother's
authority and affection!' said the lady, with rather a bitter smile.

'Oh, no!--But if you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep
him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge
his follies and caprices.'

'I perfectly agree with you, Mrs. Markham; but nothing can be further
from my principles and practice than such criminal weakness as that.'

'Well, but you will treat him like a girl--you'll spoil his spirit, and
make a mere Miss Nancy of him--you will, indeed, Mrs. Graham, whatever
you may think. But I'll get Mr. Millward to talk to you about it:--he'll
tell you the consequences;--he'll set it before you as plain as the
day;--and tell you what you ought to do, and all about it;--and, I don't
doubt, he'll be able to convince you in a minute.'

'No occasion to trouble the vicar,' said Mrs. Graham, glancing at me--I
suppose I was smiling at my mother's unbounded confidence in that worthy
gentleman--'Mr. Markham here thinks his powers of conviction at least
equal to Mr. Millward's. If I hear not him, neither should I be
convinced though one rose from the dead, he would tell you. Well, Mr.
Markham, you that maintain that a boy should not be shielded from evil,
but sent out to battle against it, alone and unassisted--not taught to
avoid the snares of life, but boldly to rush into them, or over them, as
he may--to seek danger, rather than shun it, and feed his virtue by
temptation,--would you--?'

'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham--but you get on too fast. I have not yet
said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life,--or
even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by
overcoming it;--I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your
hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe;--and if you were to rear an
oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and
shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become
a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed
to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock
of the tempest.'

'Granted;--but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?'

'Certainly not.'

'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a
hot-house plant--taught to cling to others for direction and support, and
guarded, as much as pos