When A Lady Condescends To Apologise, There

Our Children, Edward, Agnes, And Little Mary, Promise Well; Their Education, For The Time Being, Is Chiefly Committed To Me; And They Shall Want No Good Thing That A Mother's Care Can Give. Our Modest Income Is Amply Sufficient For Our Requirements; And By Practising The Economy We Learnt In Harder Times, And Never Attempting To Imitate Our Richer Neighbours, We Manage Not Only To Enjoy Comfort And Contentment Ourselves, But To Have Every Year Something To Lay By For Our Children, And Something To Give To Those Who Need It. And Now I Think I Have Said Sufficient.

It Is A Hard, Embittering Thing To Have One's Kind Feelings And Good Intentions Cast Back In One's Teeth.

But, God Knows Best, I Concluded.

The Bud, Though Plucked, Would Not Be Withered, Only Transplanted To A Fitter Soil To Ripen And Blow Beneath A Brighter Sun; And Though I Might Not Cherish And Watch My Child's Unfolding Intellect, He Would Be Snatched Away From All The Suffering And Sins Of Earth; And My Understanding Tells Me This Would Be No Great Evil; But My Heart Shrinks From The Contemplation Of Such A Possibility, And Whispers I Could Not Bear To See Him Die.

I See That A Man Cannot Give Himself Up To Drinking Without Being Miserable One Half His Days And Mad The Other; Besides, I Like To Enjoy My Life At All Sides And Ends, Which Cannot Be Done By One That Suffers Himself To Be The Slave Of A Single Propensity.