id before. Forgive and forget!
One would often be very glad to. I have often awoke in the morning and
known that I had forgotten something disagreeable, and when it did
come back I was sorry; but one's memory isn't made of slate, or one's
heart either, that one can take a wet sponge and make it clean. Oh
dear! I wonder why ill-tempered people are allowed to live! They ought
to be smothered in their cradles."

Aunt Isobel was about to reply, but I interrupted her.

"Don't think me humble-minded, Aunt Isobel, for I'm not. Sometimes I
feel inclined to think that ill-tempered people have more sense of
justice and of the strict rights and wrongs of things--at least if
they are not very bad," I interpolated, thinking of Mr. Rampant--"than
people who can smile and look pleasant at everything and everybody
like Lucy Lambent, who goes on calling me darling when I know I'm
scowling like a horned-owl. Nurse says she's the 'sweetest tempered
young lady she ever did know!' Aunt Isobel, what a muddle life is!"

"After some years of it," said my aunt, pulling her lashes hard, "_I_
generally say, What a muddle my head is! Life is too much for it."

"I am quite willing to put it that way," sighed I, laying my
muddle-head on the table, for I was tired. "It comes to much the same
thing. Now--there is my great difficulty! I give in about the other
one, but you can't cure this, and the truth is, I am not fit to go to
a confirmation-class, much less to the Holy Communion."

"Isobel," said my aunt, folding her hands on her lap, and bending her
very thick brows on the fire, "I want you to clearly understand that I
speak with great hesitation, and without any authority. I can do
nothing for you but tell you what I have found myself in _my_
struggles."

"Thank you a thousand times," said I, "that's what I want. You know I
hear two sermons every Sunday, and I have a lot of good books. Mrs.
Welment sends me a little book about ill-temper every Christmas. The
last one was about saying a little hymn before you let yourself speak
whenever you feel angry. Philip got hold of it, and made fun of it. He
said it was like the recipe for catching a sparrow by putting salt on
its tail, because if you were cool enough to say a hymn, there would
then be no need for saying it. What do you think, Aunt Isobel?"

"My dear, I have long ago given up the idea that everybody's weak
points can all be strengthened by one plaster. The hymn might be very
useful in