hat children must be ruled through FEAR. To make
something of a child, you must make it FEAR something. Is it not so,
cousin? And what, pray, do children fear so much as a rod?"

As she spoke she seemed, to look inquiringly at Woloda and myself, and I
confess that I did not feel altogether comfortable.

"Whatever you may say," she went on, "a boy of twelve, or even of
fourteen, is still a child and should be whipped as such; but with
girls, perhaps, it is another matter."

"How lucky it is that I am not her son!" I thought to myself.

"Oh, very well," said Grandmamma, folding up my verses and replacing
them beneath the box (as though, after that exposition of views, the
Princess was unworthy of the honour of listening to such a production).
"Very well, my dear," she repeated "But please tell me how, in return,
you can look for any delicate sensibility from your children?"

Evidently Grandmamma thought this argument unanswerable, for she cut the
subject short by adding:

"However, it is a point on which people must follow their own opinions."

The Princess did not choose to reply, but smiled condescendingly, and as
though out of indulgence to the strange prejudices of a person whom she
only PRETENDED to revere.

"Oh, by the way, pray introduce me to your young people," she went on
presently as she threw us another gracious smile.

Thereupon we rose and stood looking at the Princess, without in the
least knowing what we ought to do to show that we were being introduced.

"Kiss the Princess's hand," said Papa.

"Well, I hope you will love your old aunt," she said to Woloda, kissing
his hair, "even though we are not near relatives. But I value friendship
far more than I do degrees of relationship," she added to Grandmamma,
who nevertheless, remained hostile, and replied:

"Eh, my dear? Is that what they think of relationships nowadays?"

"Here is my man of the world," put in Papa, indicating Woloda; "and here
is my poet," he added as I kissed the small, dry hand of the Princess,
with a vivid picture in my mind of that same hand holding a rod and
applying it vigorously.

"WHICH one is the poet?" asked the Princess.

"This little one," replied Papa, smiling; "the one with the tuft of hair
on his top-knot."

"Why need he bother about my tuft?" I thought to myself as I retired
into a corner. "Is there nothing else for him to talk about?"

I had strange ideas on manly beauty. I considered Karl Ivanitch one of