"Let us say no more about it; you
do not suit me, and the sooner we part the better. I must be mistress
of my own house, and I want no advice in relation to my children."
"I shall hardly leave you before you will regret parting with me,"
she returned, in a placid, pitying, way.
I was afraid I had not been quite dignified in my interview with this
person, with whom I ought to have had no discussion, and my
equanimity was not restored by her shaking hands with me a
patronizing way at parting, and expressing the hope that I should one
day "be a green tree in the Paradise of God." Nor was it any too
great a consolation to find that she had suggested to my cook that my
intellect was not quite sound.
Temptation the second confessed that she knew nothing, but was
willing to be taught. Yes, she might be willing, but she could not be
taught. She could not see why Herbert should not have everything he
chose to cry for, nor why she should not take the children to the
kitchens where her friends abode, instead of keeping them out in the
air. She could not understand why she must not tell Una every half
hour that she was as fair as a lily, and that the little angels in
heaven cried for such hair as hers. And there was no rhyme or reason,
to her mind, why she could not have her friends visit in her nursery,
since, as she declared, the cook would hear all her secrets if she
received them in the kitchen.
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