“But all folks do not find it so?”
“God have mercy on them that do not!”
“Now, Aunt, what mean you?”
“Dear heart, the brighter the colour of the poisoned sweetmeat, the more like is the babe to put in his mouth.”
“Your parable is above me, Aunt Joyce.”
“Milly, a maiden must give her heart to something. The Lord’s word unto us all is, Give Me thine heart. But most of us will try every thing else first. And every thing else doth chill and disappoint us. Yet thou never sawest man nor Woman that had given the heart to God, which could ever say with truth that disappointment had come of it.”
“I reckon they should be unready to confess the same,” saith she.
“They be ready enough to confess it of other things,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “But few folks will learn by the blunders of any but their own selves. I would thou didst.”
“By whose blunders would you have me learn, Aunt?” saith Milly in her saucy fashion that is yet so bright and coaxing that she rarely gets flitten (scolded) for the same.
“By those of whomsoever thou seest to blunder,” quoth she.