fee, and
exclaimed--'Pooh! what coffee! perfect slops!'

"His mother was grieved to see him acting so naughtily, and said,
gently--'I am sorry, Arthur, you are not pleased; will you have an egg?'

"Arthur cracked an egg with his teaspoon, looked at it, threw it down,
and turning up his nose with disdain, said--'Eggs! Brickbats you mean!
they have been boiling all night.'

"This exhibition of ill temper distressed his mother exceedingly, but
she did not say any thing to him then; being a woman of excellent sense,
she formed a plan in her mind which she hoped would effect a cure.

"Arthur was an only child. His parents were rich, and they preferred
that he should be educated at home; they feared his learning evil as
well as good at a large school. Hitherto this plan had been very
successful, for Arthur was as studious and obedient as his tutors could
possibly wish; and this sudden and sad change made all around him
unhappy. I will give you a history of one of these miserable days.

"On this morning, his tutor arrived, as usual, at nine o'clock; and
commenced by giving his pupil a lesson in penmanship. There was an
ominous scowl on Arthur's face. He twitched his copy-book before him,
pretended he could not find a good pen, scratched and blotted the paper
from top to bottom, and so, when the lesson was finished, the page was
a sight to behold.

"'You have not tried to write well,' said his master, mildly.

"'My pen was abominable, and the paper was greasy,' said Arthur,
sulkily.

"'A bad workman always pretends that his _tools_ are to blame,' said the
master.

"'Oh, dear me! you are never satisfied! If I write too lightly, you say
it looks as if a spider had scampered over the paper with inky legs; if
I bear on harder, you ask me how much horse power I have put on to make
such heavy strokes. I don't know what to do! I don't! You are always
grumbling.'

"'Oh, no! not always, for here are a great many pages on which I have
written, "Very well; very well, indeed."'

"'That was only by chance,' said Arthur.

"'But if these chances do not always occur, whose fault is it?'

"'Oh, mine! I suppose you mean to say,' answered Arthur, pettishly.

"'Well, my dear boy, only look at your writing to-day. It resembles a
company of soldiers, each of whom carries his musket to suit himself,
this one to the right, that to the left, a third horizontally, a fourth
perpendicularly, and all the rest of the letters with broken bac