"Dull!" cried the three ladies in chorus; and Charlotte added, in high and amazed tones:
"Why, she is occupied from morning till night!"
"It was only to-day I let her off a quarter-of-an-hour practising on account of the heat," continued Fanny.
"If you think she might devote more time to her calisthenics——" began Emily.
"It was not that I meant at all," said Ellen, when she could get a hearing. "I do not complain of want of occupation for hers, but want of amusement."
"I was always taught to consider," said Charlotte, in a tone of some displeasure, "that those who were fully employed need never complain of ennui. Occupation is amusement."
"Then, to follow on your argument," said Ellen, half playfully, "the convicts who are sentenced to hard labor must have a most amusing time of it."
This remark, savoring dangerously of irony, was received by the three sisters with utter silence, and Charlotte thought, as she often did, what a pity it was that Ellen read so many books; really it quite warped her judgment.
"Of course everything should be in moderation," she said frigidly, after a pause; "too severe labor would be as bad for the body as too little is for the mind."
This speech sounded rather well, and Charlotte's temper was somewhat soothed by the feeling that she had made a hit.