"My dear Roderick," she would say sometimes, "if I send in some
candles, will you go into the drawing room?"

"O yes, Mamma."

"Then do you really mean to say you think _the Candles take care of
you_?"

"No, Mamma."

"Then why won't you go into the room without; you know there is a
fire?

"Because it is so dark, Mamma."

Here was a difficulty indeed; for you see he _would_ come back to the
old point, and would not listen to reason.

One day some conversation of this sort having passed between them,
Madeline, as she was wont to do, asked him if God could not take care
of him by night as well as by day; in the dark as well as in light,
for "the darkness and light are both alike to him."

"Oh yes," cried poor Roderick, with great animation, "and I can tell
you a story about that. There was, once upon a time, a little Boy and
a Nurse who went out walking, and they walked so long they got
benighted in a very dark wood, and because it was so dark the Nurse
screamed and was very much frightened; and the little boy said,
'Nurse, why are you frightened? Don't be frightened; I am not
frightened. God can take care of us in the dark as well as in the
light,'"

"Oh Roderick! what a pretty story," cried his Mamma.

And so thought Roderick; for his eye glistened and his cheek flushed
as he came to the conclusion.

And here, dear readers, was the worst difficulty of all; for though
Roderick's reason was quite convinced that God could take care of him
in the dark, he still could not bear to be in the dark without the
help of candles besides, though he quite knew they could not take care
of him at all. So you see by this that Reason, though it may convince
a person he is wrong, cannot put him right. There wants some other
help for that. And here let me just stop a moment to beg you to beware
of _bad habits_; for you see they become at last more powerful than
reason itself.

I do not know how Roderick first got into his foolish habit, and it
does not much matter. I know he at one time had a fancy there was
something unpleasant about the pipes that carried the water about the
house, and he would not for a long time go by the pipes alone. Now,
how you laugh! well, but he got out of that nonsense; and I hope to be
able to tell you that he got out of the other too: but at the time I
speak of, he made his Mamma full of sorrow for his want of sense and
courage.

It must be admitted that there were one or two excuses to be ma