"You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew. You do right to teach me, and to make me work."
"Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of sheets?"
"Yes."
"Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?"
"Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."
"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke; "how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this, I prefer that'—such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder cry, 'I will, and I will not!'"
"I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not."
"I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they marry and have any of their own to consider well how they would like the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the stubborn, the constant burden and task of training the best."
"But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed Caroline. "Mothers love their children most dearly—almost better than they love themselves."
"Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life yet to come for you, young miss."