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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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“Well, I have been resolving I won’t, off and on, these ten years,” said St. Clare; “but I haven’t, somehow, got clear. Have you got clear of all your sins, cousin?” “Cousin Augustine,” said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and laying down her knit- ting-work, “I suppose I deserve that you should reprove my shortcomings. I know all you say is true enough; nobody else feels them more than I do; but it does seem to me, after all, there is some difference between me and you. It seems to me I would cut off my right hand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing what I thought was wrong. But, then, my conduct is so inconsistent with my pro- fession, I don’t wonder you reprove me.” “O, now, cousin,” said Augustine, sitting down on the floor, and laying his head back in her lap, “don’t take on so awfully serious! You know what a good- for-nothing, saucy boy I always was. I love to poke you up,- that’s all,- just to see you get earnest. I do think you are desperately, distressingly good; it tires me to death to think of it.” “But this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste,” said Miss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead. “Dismally so,” said he; “and I-well, I never want to talk seriously in hot weather. What with mosquitoes and all, a fellow ‘t get himself up to any very sub- lime moral flights; and, I believe,” said St. Clare, suddenly rousing himself up, “there’s a theory now! I understand now why northern nations are always more virtuous than southern ones,- I see into that whole subject.” |
