o know if they haven't just as much right in the world as
grown folks?

I begin to feel catamount-y about it!

I'd like to know if boarding-house keepers, (after children have been
in a close school-room for five or six hours, feeding on verbs and
pronouns,) are to put them off with a "second table," leaving them to
stand round in the entries on one leg, smelling the dinner, while grown
people (who have lunched at oyster shops and confectioner's saloons)
sit two or three hours longer than is necessary at dessert, cracking
their nuts and their jokes?

I'd like to know if, when they have a quarter given them to spend, they
must _always_ receive a bad shilling out of it at the stores, in
"change"?

I'd like to know if people in omnibuses are at liberty to take them by
the coat collar, lift them out of a nice seat, take it themselves, and
then perch them on their sharp knee-bones, to jolt over the pavements?

I have a great mind to pick up all the children, and form a colony on
some bright island, where these people, who were made up in a hurry,
without hearts, couldn't find us; or if they did, we'd just say to them
when they tried to come ashore--_Never take grown-up folks here, sir!_
or, we'd treat them to a "second dinner,"--bill of fare, cold potatoes,
bad cooking butter, bread full of saleratus, bones without any meat on
them, watery soups, and curdled milk--(that is to say, after we had
picked our nuts long enough to suit us at dessert!) How do you suppose
they'd like to change places with "children" that way?

Now here's Aunt Fanny's creed, and you may read it to your mother if
you like.

I believe in great round apples and _big_ slices of good plain
gingerbread for children.

I believe in making their clothes loose enough to enable them to eat it
all, and jump round in when they get through.

I believe in not giving away their little property, such as dolls,
kites, balls, hoops, and the like, without their leave.

I believe in not promising them a ride, and then forgetting all about
it.

I believe in not teasing them for amusement, and then punishing them
for being "troublesome."

I believe in not allowing Bridget and Betty to box their ears because
the pot boils over, or because their beaux didn't come the evening
before.

I believe in sending them to school where there are backs to the
benches, and where the schoolma'am has had at least "_one_ offer."

I believe no house can be properly furnishe