Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
himself for his master; and I have been obliged to give him a little insight into his mistake.” “How?” said Marie. “Why, I was obliged to let him understand explicitly that I prefered to keep some of my clothes for my own personal wearing; also, I put his magnificence upon an allowance of cologne-water, and actually was so cruel as to restrict him to one dozen of my cambric handkerchiefs. Dolph was particularly huffy about it, and I had to talk to him like a father, to bring him round.” “O St. Clare, when will you learn how to treat your servants? It’s abominable, the way you indulge them!” said Marie. “Why, after all, what’s the harm of the poor dog’s wanting to be like his mas- ter; and if I haven’t brought him up any better than to find his chief good in co- logne and cambric handkerchiefs, why shouldn’t I give them to him?” “And why haven’t you brought him up better?” said Miss Ophelia, with blunt determination. “Too much trouble,- laziness, cousin, laziness,- which ruins more souls than you can shake a stick at. If it weren’t for laziness, I should have been a perfect an- gel, myself. I’m inclined to think that laziness is what your old Dr. Botherem, up in Vermont, used to call the ‘essence of moral evil.’ It’s an awful consideration, certainly.” |