When Dolly found herself arrayed in her red dress and red shoes, her hair nicely curled, she was so happy that, to speak scripturally, she leaped for joy—flew round and round with her curls flying, like a little mad-cap—till her mother was obliged to apply a sedative exhortation.
"Take care, Dolly; take care. I can't take you, now, unless you are good. If you get so wild as that I shall have to leave you at home. Come here, and let me talk to you."
And Dolly came and stood, grave and serious, at her mother's knee, who, while she made over and arranged some of the tumbled curls, proceeded to fortify her mind for the coming emergency with suitable precepts.
"It's a great thing for a little girl like you, Dolly, to be allowed to sit up with grown people till nine o'clock, and to go out with your mamma, and I want you to be very careful and behave as a good little girl should. I take you, so that you may learn good manners. Now, remember, Dolly, you mustn't speak to any of them unless you are spoken to."
Dolly reflected on this precept gravely, and then said:
"Don't they speak to any one except when they are spoken to?"
"Yes, my dear, because they are grown-up people, and know when to speak and what is proper to be said. Little girls do not; so they must be silent. Little girls should be seen and not heard."
Dolly knew this maxim by heart already, and she no more questioned the propriety of it than of any of the great laws of nature.
After an interval of serious reflection, she asked:
"But, if any of them should talk to me, then I may talk to them; may I?"