How wicked we are, and how good they were then!
They kept at arm's length those detestable men;
What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay
Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?
If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa
How he dared to propose to my darling mamma;
Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows
And what shall I say if a wretch should propose?
I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin,
What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!
And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad.
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!
A martyr will save us, and nothing else can;
Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man!
Though when to the altar a victim I go,
Aunt Tabitha'll tell me she never did so!
IV
The old Master has developed one quality of late for which I am afraid I
hardly gave him credit. He has turned out to be an excellent listener.
--I love to talk,--he said,--as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think
it is because I am a goose. For I never talked much at any one time in
my life without saying something or other I was sorry for.
--You too!--said I--Now that is very odd, for it is an experience I have
habitually. I thought you were rather too much of a philosopher to
trouble yourself about such small matters as to whether you had said just
what you meant to or not; especially as you know that the person you talk
to does not remember a word of what you said the next morning, but is
thinking, it is much more likely, of what she said, or how her new dress
looked, or some other body's new dress which made--hers look as if it had
been patched together from the leaves of last November.
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