ace like a lamb as soon as she began to
speak and before she could reach the sofa herself.

"My dearest boy," began his mother, taking hold of his hand and placing
it within her own, "promise me never to be afraid either of your dear
papa or of me; promise me this, my dear, as you love me, promise it to
me," and she kissed him again and again and stroked his hair. But with
her other hand she still kept hold of his; she had got him and she meant
to keep him.

The lad hung down his head and promised. What else could he do?

"You know there is no one, dear, dear Ernest, who loves you so much as
your papa and I do; no one who watches so carefully over your interests
or who is so anxious to enter into all your little joys and troubles as
we are; but my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimes that you
have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which you ought to
have. You know, my darling, that it would be as much our pleasure as our
duty to watch over the development of your moral and spiritual nature,
but alas! you will not let us see your moral and spiritual nature. At
times we are almost inclined to doubt whether you have a moral and
spiritual nature at all. Of your inner life, my dear, we know nothing
beyond such scraps as we can glean in spite of you, from little things
which escape you almost before you know that you have said them."

The boy winced at this. It made him feel hot and uncomfortable all over.
He knew well how careful he ought to be, and yet, do what he could, from
time to time his forgetfulness of the part betrayed him into unreserve.
His mother saw that he winced, and enjoyed the scratch she had given him.
Had she felt less confident of victory she had better have foregone the
pleasure of touching as it were the eyes at the end of the snail's horns
in order to enjoy seeing the snail draw them in again--but she knew that
when she had got him well down into the sofa, and held his hand, she had
the enemy almost absolutely at her mercy, and could do pretty much what
she liked.

"Papa does not feel," she continued, "that you love him with that fulness
and unreserve which would prompt you to have no concealment from him, and
to tell him everything freely and fearlessly as your most loving earthly
friend next only to your Heavenly Father. Perfect love, as we know,
casteth out fear: your father loves you perfectly, my darling, but he
does not feel as though you loved him perfectly in re