"Ah, my dear Mrs. Myles, you are sowing bad seed," said the clergyman.
"What, sir, when I told her to be content with the little pink gingham?"
"No; but when you told her she might have a silk one hereafter. Don't you see, instead of uprooting you were fostering pride?—instead of directing her ambition to a noble object, and thereby elevating her mind, you were lowering it by drawing it down to an inferior one?"
"I did not see it," observed Mrs. Myles, simply; "but you know, sir, there's no more harm in a silk than a cotton."
"I must go now, my good lady," said the minister; "only observing that there is no more harm in one than in the other, except when the desire to possess anything beyond our means leads to discontent, if not to more actively dangerous faults. I must come and lecture the little maids myself."
"And welcome, sir, and thank you kindly besides; poor little dears, they have no one to look after them but me. I daresay I am wrong sometimes, but I do my best—I do my best."
The curate thought she did according to her knowledge, but he lamented that two such exquisitely beautiful children, possessed of such natural gifts, should be left to the management of a vain old woman—most vain—though kindly and good-hearted—giving kindness with pleasure, and receiving it with gratitude—yet totally unfit to bring up a pair of beauties, who, of all the female sex, require the most discretion in the management.
"I wonder," thought the Reverend Mr. Stokes—"I wonder when our legislature will contrive to establish a school for mothers. If girls are sent to school, the chances are that the contamination over which the teacher can have no control—the contamination of evil girls—renders them vicious; if, on the contrary, they are kept at home, the folly of their mothers makes them fools—a pretty choice!" Mr. Stokes turned down a lane that ran parallel with the garden where the children went to school; and hearing Helen's voice in loud dispute, he paused for a moment to ascertain the cause.
"I tell you," said the little maid, "Rose may be what she likes, but I'll be queen."