"
"But a lady came to see me, a Mrs. Goodhue, one of your good sort, I
suppose, and she preached me quite a sermon on the employment of
time. She said I had a solemn admonition of Providence, and ought to
devote myself entirely to religion. I had just begun to he interested
in a bit of embroidery, but she frightened me out of it. But I can't
bear such dreadfully good people, with faces a mile long."
Mother made her produce the collar, or whatever it was, showed her
how to hold her needle and arrange her pattern, and they both got so
absorbed in it that I had leisure to look at some of the beautiful
things with which the room was full.
"Make the object of your life right," I heard mother say, at last,
"and these little details will take care of themselves."
"But I haven't any object," Miss Clifford objected, "unless it is to
get through these tedious days somehow. Before I was taken ill my
chief object was to make myself attractive to the people I met And
the easiest way to do that was to dress becomingly and make myself
look as well as I could."
"I suppose," said mother, "that most girls could say the same. They
have an instinctive desire to please, and they take what they
conceive to be the shortest and easiest road to that end. It requires
no talent, no education, no thought to dress tastefully; the most
empty-hearted frivolous young person can do it, provided she has
money enough.
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