Lazy Robert; or, the Colonel's Servant by Madeline Leslie

IN the afternoon, a lady named Bowles, a cousin of Mrs. Woodward's, came with her little daughter to pass a few weeks. As she was also a cousin of Robert's father, she expressed much interest in him. It needed, however, a great deal of persuasion on the part of Mrs. Woodward to induce her husband to consent to one more trial of the boy, previously to his being sent home to his mother.

"For my sake, Frederick," was the plea that at last prevailed, and then it was only on conditions. Robert's lessons were to be recited to him, and his aunt was to have nothing to do with urging him to study; and that he was to be restricted in his diet, taking the food which his uncle sent him from the table in his own chamber, and nothing more.