“Dear, dear, I can’t forget it yet,” pursued Cook, “how Master James stood on the little stone step of the scullery, with his arm stretched out, and the needle-book that he’d bought for me in his hand. I don’t know how I thanked him, I’m sure; but I had to go back to the sink and wash the dirt off my hands before I could touch the pretty little thing, and then I told him I would keep it as long as ever I lived.
“He laughed, and says he, ‘Now shake hands, Cooky,’ and so we shook hands; and then off he ran, and I went back to my pans and fairly cried. ‘Why, Cook,’ says I to myself, ‘that lad’s got as good a heart as your own, after all. And as to sense and behaviour, they haven’t been forced upon him yet, as they have upon you. Latin’s Latin, and conduct’s conduct, and one doesn’t teach the other; and it’s too bad to expect more of people than what they’ve had opportunity for.’
“Well, dears, that was the rule I always went by, and I’ve been in many situations since—with single ladies, and single gentlemen, and large families, and all; and there was something to put up with in all of them; and they always told me there was a good deal to put up with in me, and perhaps there was. However, it doesn’t matter, so long as Missus and servant go by one rule—to make allowances, and not expect more from people than what they’ve had opportunity for; and, above all, never to be cocky when all the advantage is on their own side. It’s a good rule, dears, and will stop many a foolish word and idle tale, if you’ll go by it.”
Aunt Judy had finished at last, and she took off the old spectacles and laid them on the doll’s table, and paused.
“It is a good rule,” observed No. 4, “and I shall go by it, and not tell real Cook Stories when I grow up, I hope.”
“I love old Cooky,” cried No. 6, getting up and hugging her round the neck; “but is it wrong, Aunt Judy, to tell funny make-believe Cook Stories, like ours?”
“Not at all, No. 6,” replied Aunt Judy. “My private belief is, that if you tell funny make-believe Cook Stories while you’re little, you will be ashamed of telling stupid real ones when you’re grown up.”
RABBITS’ TAILS.
“Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry—one,
Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out;
The other, which the ray divine hath touch’d,
Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring.”Wordsworth.
“Well then; but you must remember that I have been ill, and cannot be expected to invent anything very entertaining.”