The basket, it is true, was quite small, and to fill it once with chips, was but a slight punishment; but slight punishments are always sufficient for sustaining any just and equitable government, provided they are certain to follow transgression, and are strictly and faithfully enforced.

Bella was a very obedient and submissive child, though she had scarcely ever been subjected to any heavier punishment than picking up chips.
"Shall I begin now ?" said Bella.
"No," replied her mother, "wait, if you like, till Mary Bell has taken her lesson." "I don't see how I am going to draw," said Mary Bell, "without any pencil." "You will have to draw with the pen," said Mary Erskine.

"I am very sorry that I have not got any pencil for you." So saying, Mary Erskine took up the picture-book, and began turning over the leaves, to find, as she said, the picture of a house.

She should think, she said, that the picture of a house would be a good thing to begin with.
She found a view of a house in the third picture in the book.

There was a great deal in the picture besides the house, but Mary Erskine said that the house alone should be the lesson.