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Thomas insists upon his papa’s horse being brought into the parlour for him to ride round the room. His mamma tried “to persuade him not to want it, but he would have his own way.”

“Thomas was much pleased to have it, but Kitty was afraid of it and did not like that it should stay. She therefore began to scream and beg it might go out. ‘Pray take it out!’ said she. ‘It shall go out; it shan’t stay.’

“‘It shan’t go out. It shall stay!’ said her brother.

“They made such a noise that they frightened the horse, and he began to kick and prance,” and all manner of disasters followed. Not even the most weak-minded modern parent could go further than this in the way of indulgence.

Even in so didactic a work as “The First Principles of Religion and the Existence of a Deity Explained in a Series of Dialogues Adapted to the Capacity of the Infant Mind,” you will find a child as human and engaging as any infant born since the Armistice. In this work the particular infant selected for enlightenment is one Maria, made after no formal pattern. Throughout the long and deadly dialogues her nimble mind outpaces mamma’s ponderous aphorisms. As, when that lady discourses on the awful consequences of taking God’s name in vain, Maria demands demurely: “But would it not be politer and prettier to say either Mr. or Mrs., and not plain God?”