“It is tit for tat,” she said, laughingly; “preaching and practice.”
I was quiet for some minutes.
“Do I preach much, Fan?” I asked, rather soberly.
“Not very much. But it may be as dangerous a habit as scolding, if one gets confirmed in it. And I suppose it isn’t entertaining to boys.”
“But what are you to do when they are just as bad as they can be?”
“Bear it with Christian fortitude and resignation. I am not sure but it will be good for us to have something that takes us out of the one groove, and shows us that the world is wider than the little space just around us.”
There was much truth in that, to be sure.
“You see we have had everything pretty much one way; and now we have come to a change in the current. I rather like the stir and freshening up.”
“But if Tabby was yours—”
“You remember the old lady whose idea of heaven was to ‘sit in a clean checked apron, and sing psalms;’ and I think yours must be to sit here on the porch, in a clean white dress, and nurse that sleek Maltese cat.”