Although we cannot always understand the ground for children's preferences, it is often well to heed them.
I am told that I was pensively looking out of the nursery window one day, when Mary Dunn, the Scotch nurse, who was something of a philosopher, and a stern Presbyterian, said: "Child, what are you thinking about; are you planning some new form of mischief ?" "No, Mary," I replied, "I was wondering why it was that everything we like to do is a sin, and that everything we dislike is commanded by God or someone on earth.

I am so tired of that everlasting no! no! no! At school, at home, everywhere it is _no_! Even at church all the commandments begin 'Thou shalt not.' I suppose God will say 'no' to all we like in the next world, just as you do here." Mary was dreadfully shocked at my dissatisfaction with the things of time and prospective eternity, and exhorted me to cultivate the virtues of obedience and humility.
I well remember the despair I felt in those years, as I took in the whole situation, over the constant cribbing and crippling of a child's life.

I suppose I found fit language in which to express my thoughts, for Mary Dunn told me, years after, how our discussion roused my sister Margaret, who was an attentive listener.

I must have set forth our wrongs in clear, unmistakable terms; for Margaret exclaimed one day, "I tell you what to do.

Hereafter let us act as we choose, without asking." "Then," said I, "we shall be punished." "Suppose we are," said she, "we shall have had our fun at any rate, and that is better than to mind the everlasting 'no' and not have any fun at all." Her logic seemed unanswerable, so together we gradually acted on her suggestions.