I'll get a lead pencil." "No, don't!" exclaimed Mrs.Maynard, in dismay.

She liked to play the piano, but she was far from careful to hold her hands in the position required by Midget's teacher.
"Yes, I think I'd better, Helen.

If you contract bad habits, it's so difficult to break them." Roguish Marjorie brought a lead pencil, and laid it carefully across the back of her mother's hand, from which it immediately rolled off.
"Now, Helen, you must hold your hand level.

Try again, dearie, and if it rolls off, pick it up and put it back in place." Mrs.Maynard made a wry face, and the other grown-ups laughed, to see the difficulty she experienced with the pencil.
"One--two--three--four," she counted, aloud.
"Count to yourself, Helen," said Marjorie.

"It's annoying to hear you do that!" This, too, was quoted, for Mrs.Maynard had often objected to the monotonous drone of Marjorie's counting aloud.
But the mother began to see that a child's life has its own little troubles, and she smiled appreciatively at Midget, as she picked up the pencil from the floor for the twentieth time, and replaced it on the back of her hand, now stiff and lame from the unwonted restraint.
"You dear old darling!" cried Midget, flying over and kissing the patient musician; "you sha'n't do that any longer! I declare, King, it's clearing off, after all! Let's take the children out for a walk." "Very well, we will.