Tophronius, a wise teacher, would not allow even his own grown-up sons and daughters to associate with those whose conduct was not pure and upright. "Dear father," said the gentle Eulalia to him one day, when he forbid her, in company with her brother, to visit the volatile Lucinda, "dear father, you must think us very childish, if you imagine that we should be exposed to danger by it." The father took in silence a dead coal from the hearth, and reached it to his daughter, "It will not burn you, my child, take it." Eulalia did so, and behold! her delicate white hand was soiled and blackened, and as it chanced her white dress also. "We cannot be too careful in handling coals," said Eulalia, in vexation. "Yes truly," said her father; "you see my child that coals, even if they do not burn blacken. So it is with the company of the vicious.