lready had one
apiece, then he would only give them two more. Ernest said that his uncle
would ask them about it. Anna said, 'No matter, we can tell him that we did
not find any.'

"Ernest seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking his
head, said, 'No, I think we had better not tell him a lie!'

"So when he saw their uncle coming he said, 'Come, Anna, let us go and tell
him about it, just how it was. So they ran together to meet their uncle,
and told him that they had found two apples under the tree, one apiece,
and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece, according to his
promise, and they went home feeling contented and happy.

"They might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining together
to tell a falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home feeling
guilty and unhappy."

_The Effect_.

Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa
time to think about it a little.

"I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a
great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did."

"I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her
eyes and looking a little confused.

"But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle tone,
"that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that Bridget
gave you."

Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then, reaching up
to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said,

"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I
live."

_Only a Single Lesson, after all_.

Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would
have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it was
only _one_. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no
nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or
morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the
workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right
direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but
was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of the other
methods of management previously described.

_How Gentle Measures operate_.

By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here discussed and
recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and irritating
manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate