“Do I!” exclaimed Harry, with a mock tragic air, “’could I the horrors of my prison house unfold,’s you would see that the obedient member of the Burton family never appears in gowns.”
“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Burton. “Didn’t he promise to be mine, and shall I neglect my responsibilities? I obeyed my parents.”
“And never doubted that their orders were wise, beneficent, and necessary, of course?” asked Lawrence.
THE OBEDIENT MEMBER OF THE BURTON FAMILY
“Tom, Tom!” said Helen, warningly; “if you don’t want Alice to abuse other people’s children be careful what you say about other children’s parents. Don’t play grand inquisitor.”
“Oh, not at all,” said Tom, hastily. “But I should like to borrow woman’ curiosity for a while, and have it gratified in this particular case.”
“I don’t know that I always admitted the wisdom of my parents’s commands,” said Mrs. Burton; “but how could I? I was only a child.”
“You rendered unquestioning obedience in spirit as well as in act, when you became a young lady, then?” pursued Tom.
“No, I didn’t. There!” Mrs. Burton exclaimed; “but what return can a child make for parental care and suffering, except to at least seem to be a model of compliance with its parents’s desires?”