inds, wherein clever
villainy was exalted, and deeds of ferocious cruelty and revenge
occurred as a daily commonplace among heroes. The same policy was
indicated by the practice of allowing children to become familiar with
the sight of slaughter, and of violence of every kind towards animals,
from earliest infancy. Hadria concluded from all this, that it was
thought wise to postpone the moral training of the young till a more
convenient season.

Henriette looked at her sister-in-law, with a sad and baffled mien.
Hadria's expression was solemn, and as much like that of Mrs. Walker as
she could make it, without descending to obvious caricature.

"Do you think it quite wise, Henriette, to run dead against the customs
of ages? Do you think it safe to ignore the opinion of countless
generations of those who were older and wiser than ourselves?"

"Dear me, how you _have_ changed!" cried Miss Temperley.

"Advancing years; the sobering effects of experience," Hadria explained.
She was grieved to find Henriette at variance with those who had
practical knowledge of education. As the child grew up, one could easily
explain to him that the ideas and impressions that he might have
acquired, in early years, were mostly wrong, and had to be reversed.
That was quite simple. Besides, unless he were a born idiot of criminal
tendencies, he was bound to find it out for himself.

"But, my dear Hadria, it is just the early years that are the
impressionable years. Nothing can quite erase those first impressions."

"Oh, do you think so?" said Hadria mildly.

"Yes, indeed, I think so," cried Henriette, losing her temper.

"Oh, well of course you may be right."

Hadria had brought out a piece of embroidery (about ten years old), and
was working peacefully.

On questions of hygiene, she was equally troublesome. She had taken
hints, she said, from mothers of large families. Henriette laid stress
upon fresh air, even in the house. Hadria believed in fresh air; but
was it not going a little far to have it in the house?

Henriette shook her head.

Fresh air was _always_ necessary. In moderation, perhaps, Hadria
admitted. But the utmost care was called for, to avoid taking cold. She
laid great stress upon that. Children were naturally so susceptible. In
all the nurseries that she had visited, where every possible precaution
was taken against draughts, the children were incessantly taking cold.

"Perhaps the precautions made them delicat