thoughts are turned on peace.'"

The little boy looked very much as if they were _not_, and as if
meditating an outbreak.

"No, no!" exclaimed Christopher, "let him say Hamlet. Come now,
Benny--'To be or not to be.'"

"It ain't to be at all," cried Benny, "and I won't speak the least bit
of it for any of you. I hate that speech!"

"Only see his obstinacy," said the solemn Joseph. "And is he to be
given up to?"

"Speak anything, Benny," said Mrs. Watkinson, "anything so that it is
only a speech."

All the Watkinson voices now began to clamor violently at the
obstinate child--"Speak a speech! speak a speech! speak a speech!" But
they had no more effect than the reiterated exhortations with which
nurses confuse the poor heads of babies, when they require them to
"shake a day-day--shake a day-day!"

Mrs. Morland now interfered, and begged that the sleepy little boy
might be excused; on which he screamed out that "he wasn't sleepy at
all, and would not go to bed ever."

"I never knew any of my children behave so before," said Mrs.
Watkinson. "They are always models of obedience, ma'am. A look is
sufficient for them. And I must say that they have in every way