“Oh!” said Millicent—“what a butterfly life it seems to me! What a very gay whirligo-round; much finer than that of children at a fair; but still, only a whirligo-round. I should grow as sick of it as a squirrel must of his ever round-spinning cage. Give me a good brisk canter over a moor, or along the bowery lanes of my own dear country.”
“Yes! and why not have them too?” said her friends. “You do not consider that these people are, during the season, cooped up in London—many by severe and unavoidable duties, and this is the only thing they can get at all resembling country exercise. In the autumn they will return, most of them, to enjoy their gallops over moors and along lanes, as much as yourself.”
“I am glad of it,” said Millicent; “and yet thousands who have no express business in town spend their springs and summers here, and love this Vanity Fair dearly—this seeing and being seen—this rivalry of fine horses, dresses, and equipages. I don’t envy them.”
“Oh dear no! Nor do they envy you, Millicent,” said her friends. “There speaks the Quaker in you; that might be your mother talking.”
“I am glad you think I talk at all like my dear mother,” said Millicent; “for if it be anything like her talk it must have some sense in it. But, though I would not like this sort of life myself, I am much obliged by your making me acquainted with it.”
The trouble which Millicent had shown on account of the bracelet, and the evident distress, from some cause, which was upon her, made her loving friends apparently desirous to neutralise the effect a little by the sisters bringing her elegant presents—beautifully bound books, and the like. One of them asked her to let her look at her watch; and, taking off the plain black woven band by which it was held, replaced it by a pretty gold chain.
“My dear creature!” exclaimed Millicent, “of what use would such a thing be to me? I could never wear it. I should have a deputation from the meeting to visit me about it!”
“Never mind that,” said her friend; “thou must teach them better. There is no particular sin in gold; it is a gift of God, and ought not to be rejected; and the art which shaped it so beautifully surely deserves encouragement.”
“All that I grant,” said Millicent; “but only think of wearing a gold chain in a meeting where the plainest ribbon or a bonnet-tie excites remark; where an extra plait in a cap brings down a censure from some zealous woman Friend or other.”
“For that very reason,” said her companion, “you, who know better, ought to break through this silly narrowness. It is time that Friends gave up their sectarian notions that ‘they are the people, and that wisdom must die with them.’”