“I do not wish you to think you shall be unhappy; I wish you to have as much pleasure now as you can have, without being made unhappy by disappointment. I wish you to attend to your own feelings, to find out what makes you happy, and what makes you unhappy. You are going on a party of pleasure, I beg you to observe whether you are happy or not; observe what pleases and entertains you.”
Here the conversation was interrupted. A carriage came to the door, and Rosamond exclaimed—
“Here they are—Mrs. Blisset, Miss Blisset, and her two brothers. I see their heads in the coach; I will run and put on my hat.”
“I assure you, mamma,” continued she, as she was tying the string of her hat, “I will remember to tell you whether I have been happy or not.”
Rosamond went with her mother, and Mrs. Blisset and her children, on this party. The next morning, when Rosamond went into her mother’s room, her mother reminded her of her promise.
“You promised to tell, my dear, whether you were as happy as you expected to be.”
“I did, mamma. You must know, then, I was not happy all day yesterday; that is to say, I was not nearly so happy as I thought I should have been. I should have liked going in the boat, and seeing the streamers flying, and hearing the music, and looking at the prospect, and walking in the pretty island, and dining out of doors under the large shady trees, if it had not been for other things, which were so disagreeable that they spoiled all our pleasure.”
“What were those disagreeable things?”
“Mamma, they were little things. Yet they were very disagreeable. Little disputes—little quarrels between Miss Blisset and her brothers, about every thing that was to be done. First, when he got into the boat, the youngest boy wanted us to sit on one side, and Miss Blisset wanted us to sit on the other side; now, mamma, you know we could not do both.