"Yes, my dear child, so you have; but knowing that you have told me before, will not ease your mind now."
"Only that I don't like repeating it all over again," said Amy; "it seems as if all you had said had done me no good."
"It takes a very long time to make any one good," answered her mother, "so you must not be disheartened even if you do find the same bad feelings returning again and again. I daresay you have been dreaming of having a large house like Rochford Park, and quantities of money to spend just as you please; and now, when you find you must be contented with a small house, and very little money, you are unhappy."
"I don't want it all for myself," said Amy.
"But even for others," replied Mrs Herbert; "you desire to give them something that God has thought fit they should not have; which do you think knows best what is good?"
"Oh mamma! indeed I am sure that God is wiser than any one; but I cannot help wishing."
"Do you remember, Amy, the promise you have so often repeated to me; I mean the promise made for you at your baptism; that you would renounce 'the pomps and vanities of this wicked world?'"
"But, mamma, I do not want any pomp; I should not care to be a queen; and it would make me miserable to have anything to do with what was wicked."
"My dear," said Mrs Herbert, "the pomps and vanities of the world are different to different people. If Susan Reynolds, for instance, were anxious to live in this cottage, and wear a silk dress like yours, she would be longing for pomps and vanities, because she would be coveting something beyond her station; and so, when you are desiring to live at Emmerton or Rochford Park, you are equally wrong."
"Then why does my uncle live at such a large place, and have so many servants and carriages, if he has promised to renounce them?" asked Amy. "Is it wicked?"