to blame?" asked George.

"You will always be the one that is most to blame," replied his mother,
"or, at least, almost always. When a boy is playing with a sister younger
than himself, _he_ is the one that is most to blame for the quarrelling.
His sister may be to blame by doing something wrong in the first instance;
but he is the one to blame for allowing it to lead to a quarrel. If it is a
little thing, he ought to yield to her, and not to mind it; and if it is
a great thing, he ought to go away and leave her, rather than to stop and
quarrel about it. So you see you will be the one to blame for the quarrel
in almost all cases. There may possibly be some cases where you will not
be to blame at all, and then you will have to be punished when you don't
deserve it, and you must bear it like a man. This is a liability that
happens under all systems."

"We will try the plan for one fortnight," she continued. "So now remember,
every single time that I hear you disputing or quarrelling with Amelia, you
must take off your jacket and put it on again wrong side out--no matter
whether you think you were to blame or not--and wear it so a few minutes.
You can wear it so for a longer or shorter time, just as you think is best
to make the punishment effectual in curing you of the fault. By the end of
the fortnight we shall be able to see whether the plan is working well and
doing any good."

"So now," continued his mother, "shut up your eyes and go to sleep. You are
a good boy to wish to cure yourself of such faults, and to be willing to
help me in contriving ways to do it. And I have no doubt that you will
submit to this punishment good-naturedly every time, and not make me any
trouble about it."

Let it be remembered, now, that the efficacy of such management as this
consists not in the devising of it, nor in holding such a conversation as
the above with the boy--salutary as this might be--but in the _faithfulness
and strictness with which it is followed up_ during the fortnight of trial.

In the case in question, the progress which George made in diminishing his
tendency to get into disputes with his sister was so great that his mother
told him, at the end of the first fortnight, that their plan had succeeded
"admirably"--so much so, she said, that she thought the punishment of
taking off his jacket and turning it inside out would be for the future
unnecessarily severe, and she proposed to substitute for it taking off his
cap