like to
see Mark doing the polite to `Old Tanky,' as he calls him."

"Come, Miss Pert, you must mind your behaviour," says Florence;
"remember, Mr Tankardew is a gentleman and an old man."

"Indeed, Miss Gravity, but I'm not going to learn manners of you; mamma
pays Miss Craven to teach me that, so good-bye;" and the child, with a
mocking courtesy towards her sister, runs out of the room laughing.

And now let us look into the breakfast-room of "The Shrubbery," as Mrs
Franklin's house is called.

Mary and her mother are sitting together, the former adding some little
adornments to her evening dress, and the latter knitting.

"Don't you like Mark Rothwell, mamma?"

"No, my child."

"Oh! Mamma! What a cruelly direct answer!"

"Shouldn't I speak the direct truth, Mary?"

"Oh! Yes, certainly the truth, only you might have softened it off a
little, because I think you must like some things in him."

"Yes, he is cheerful and good-tempered."

"And obliging, mamma?"

"I'm not so sure of that, Mary; self-indulgent people are commonly
selfish people, and selfish people are seldom obliging: a really
obliging person is one who will cross his own inclination to gratify
yours, without having any selfish end in view."

"And you don't think Mark would do this, mamma?"

"I almost think not. I like to see a person obliging from principle,
and not merely from impulse: not merely when his being obliging is only
another form of self-gratification."

"But why should not Mark Rothwell be obliging on principle?"

"Well, Mary, you know my views. I can trust a person as truly obliging
who acts on Christian principle, who follows the rule, `Look not
everyone on his own things, but everyone also on the things of others,'
because he loves Christ. I am afraid poor Mark has never learned to
love Christ."

Mary sighs, and her mother looks anxiously at her.

"My dearest child," she says, earnestly, "I don't want you to get too
intimate with the young Rothwells. I am sure they are not such
companions as your own heart would approve of."

"Why, no, mamma, I can't say I admire the way in which they have been
brought up."

"Admire it! Oh! Mary, this is one of the crying sins of the day. I
mean the utter selfishness and self-indulgence in which so many young
people are educated; they must eat, they must drink, they must talk just
like their elders; they acknowledge no betters, they spurn all
authority; the holy rule, `Ch