"Sometimes I think she can, and sometimes I think she can't,'"
said Polly slowly. "Once in a while, when we have had a 'scrap,'
as Alan calls it, I think she doesn't care a bit about me."

"Whose fault is it, when you quarrel?" asked Mrs. Adams, smoothing
the short curls. "I don't think it is all Molly's fault, any more
than it is all yours. If my small daughter wants her friends to
care for her, she must govern that temper and study self-control."

"I know that, mamma," broke in Polly impetuously; "but you don't
have any idea how hard 'tis, nor how sorry I am after it is over."

"It is just because I do know it so well, my dear, that I keep
saying this to you; for I hope I can save you from a part, at
least, of the pain I have suffered in just this same way. I have
been through it all, Polly, and I know that every time you give up
to your temper, it is just so much easier to do it again; and if
you were to go on long enough, in time you would get to where it
would be impossible to stop yourself, and you would do something
that might be a sorrow to you, through all your life. It is just
so with every habit; the more you give way to it, the more it
becomes a part of your nature. That is the reason I am trying to
help you form the habit of a quiet, even temper. And now," added
Mrs. Adams, changing the subject, "what else was there that we
wanted to talk over?"

"'Twas Jean," said Polly, as she slipped down on the floor at her
mother's feet. "Miss Bean was twitting her to-day because she
wasn't rich." And Polly repeated the little conversation which had