or when Mother explained to
them what their tricks really meant, that they became their own true
selves, and we had the first good play together of the season the next
morning on the shore, though Tommy did his best to bother us, and to
draw off the boys again by promising to show them quite a new way of
managing a shipwreck.

But the boys would not join Tommy, and so he went off alone, and we saw
him five minutes after with Yellowboy, the sandy kitten, tied to the
mast of his ship, doing his very best to drown the poor little thing,
pretending he was rescuing it from the perils of the ocean.

I could fill pages were I to go on telling you only of Tommy's tricks;
but as that cannot be, I am just going to let you know how we cured him.
We simply let him alone. Mother only scolded him, or rather talked to
him, once, and that seemed to have no effect on him at all, though
Mother's "talkings" usually soften the hardest heart; so finally we all
agreed to go our own ways just as if he were not there, Nurse promising
to put all our toys and pets out of his reach, and to see that he came
to no real harm.

He actually bore a whole week of it before he repented. We used to watch
him from the corners of our eyes moping all by himself, and looking at
the toes of his boots, or at his ship, which he really could not sail
without our help, and felt so sorry for him. We longed to break our
resolution; but Mother and Nurse helped us to keep firm, and one Monday
morning Tommy came up to me and said, "Why won't you play with me,
Hilda?"

"Because you are cruel and ungentlemanly," I said seriously, "and
because you are selfish. We tried our best to be pleasant to you, though
we never wanted you here, and in return you made the boys horrid to us,
and never allowed us five minutes' peace. You spoiled a whole week of
our precious holidays, and we can't afford to waste any more time over
you. We can do without you perfectly well, and so please go away."

"But I am truly sorry, Hilda," he said, looking down. "I've been
'flecting" (he meant reflecting). "I'd much rather be agreeable and
nice, and I won't be selfish if you'd not look away from me and forget
me any more. If I'd your mother I'd be good perhaps, but I really think
my mother doesn't understand boys." And he sighed deeply, and put his
hands into his knickerbocker pockets.

"You'll not forget, and tease us again?" I asked firmly; "and you know I
must ask Mother too."

"I'll pr