Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

"'How proud we are, how fond to show
Our clothes, and call them rich and new,
When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore
That very clothing long before.

"'The tulip and the butterfly
Appear in gayer coats than I;
Let me be dressed fine as I will,
Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.'"

"I don't think worms look nicer than I do," said Ruby, not very politely, when Miss Abigail had finished. "And I am very sorry for you, Miss Abigail, if you had to learn such ugly verses. If you had had a mamma like mine you would have had a better time, I think."

Miss Abigail looked severely over her brass-bowed spectacles at Ruby, almost too shocked to speak for a moment.

"I am sure, I don't know what your mother would say, Ruby Harper, if she heard you talking that way. I am sure she would think that you were no credit to her bringing-up. You have a good mother, one of the best mothers that ever lived, and your father is such a good man, too, that I am sure I don't see where you get your pert ways from. I was a happy child, because I was, in the main, a good child, and no one ever had a better mother than mine; and I have tried to follow the way in which I was brought up, if I do say it myself. Those were counted to be very pretty verses when I was a child, and I don't know but they were better than to-day. At any rate, in my day, children were taught to have a little respect for their elders, and there are very few that do that now. There were some other verses that I was going to tell a good deal of the nonsense that children learn you, but if that is your opinion of those I did tell you, there is no use in my taking so much trouble."

Miss Abigail looked sorrowful as well as vexed, and Ruby wished that she had not told her what she thought of the verses.

"I suppose she thinks they are nice," she said to herself; "and mamma would be sorry if she thought I had been rude to Miss Abigail."

Ruby was going away from her mother so soon that her conscience was more tender than usual, and she did not want to do what she knew her mother would not like.

"Please tell me the other verses, Miss Abigail," she said. "I did not know you liked those other verses, or I would not have called them ugly."

"I am glad you did not mean to be a rude child," said Miss Abigail, pleased by Ruby's apology. "Your mother takes so much pains with you that it would be a pity for you not to be a good child. Yes, I will tell you the others, and while I am repeating them you can sit down upon this little ottoman, and pick out the bastings in this sleeve."