A cup of sweets, that can never cloy.
by Elizabeth Semple and Elizabeth Sandham.
CURIOSITY.
Arabella fancied there could be no pleasure in the world equal to that of listening to conversations in which she had no concern, peeping into her mamma"s drawers and boxes, and asking impertinent questions. If a parcel was brought to the house, she had no rest till she had found out what was in it; and if her papa rung the bell, she would never quit the room till the servant came up, that she might hear what he wanted.
She had been often desired to be less curious, and more attentive to her lessons; to play with her doll and her baby-house, and not trouble herself with other people"s affairs: but she never minded what was said to her, and when she was sitting by her mamma, with a book in her hand, instead of reading it, and endeavouring to improve herself, she was always looking round her, to observe what her brothers and sisters were doing, and to watch every one who went out or came into the room.
She desired extremely to have a writing-master, because she hoped, that, after she had learnt a short time, she should be able to read writing, and then she should have the pleasure of finding out who all the letters were for, which the servant carried to the post-office; and might sometimes peep over her papa"s shoulder, and read those which he received. One day perceiving her mamma whisper to her brother William, and that they soon after left the room together, she immediately concluded there must be something going forward, some _secret_ which was to be hid from her, and which, perhaps, if she lost the present moment, she never should be able to discover. Poor Arabella could sit still no longer; she watched them from the window, and seeing that they went towards a gate in the garden, which opened into the wood, she determined to be there before them, and to hide herself in the bushes near the path, that she might overhear their conversation as they pa.s.sed by.
This she soon accomplished, by taking a shorter way; but it was not very long before she had reason to wish she had not been so prying; for the gardener pa.s.sing through the wood with an ill-natured cur which always followed him, seeing her move among the bushes, it began to bark violently, and in an instant jumped into her lap.
She was very much frightened, and, in trying to get away, without intending it, gave him a great blow on the head; in return for which he bit her finger, and it was so very much hurt, and was so long before it was quite well again, that her friends hoped it would have cured her of being so curious; but they were much mistaken. Arabella"s finger was no sooner well, than the pain she had suffered, her fright, and the gardener"s cur, were all forgotten; and whenever any thing happened, let the circ.u.mstance be ever so trifling, if she did not perfectly understand the whole matter, she could not rest or attend to any thing she had to do, till she had discovered the mystery; for she imagined _mysteries_ and _secrets_ in every thing she saw and heard, unless she had been informed of what was going to be done.
Some time after her adventure in the wood, she one morning missed her brother William, and not finding him at work in his little garden, began directly to imagine her mamma had sent him on some secret expedition; she resolved, however, on visiting the whole house, in the hope of finding him, before she made any inquiry, and accordingly hunted every room and every closet, but to no purpose. From the house she went to the poultry-yard, and from thence to the lawn, but William was no where to be found. What should she do!--"I will hunt round the garden once more,"
said she; "I must and will find him, and know where he has been all this time; why he went without telling me, and why I might not have been intrusted with the secret. I will not eat my dinner till I find him, even if he does not return till night."
Arabella returned once more to the garden, where at length, in a retired corner which she had not thought of visiting, she found her brother sleeping under a large tree. He had a little covered basket by his side, and slept so soundly, that he did not move when she came near the place, though she was talking to herself as she walked along, and not in a very low voice.
"Now," thought the curious girl, "I have caught him: he must have been a long way, for he appears to be very warm and tired; and he has certainly got something in that basket which I am not to see, and I suppose mamma is to come here and take it from him, that I may know nothing of it.
Mamma and William have always secrets, but I will discover this, however--I am determined I will."
She then crept softly up to the basket, and stopped down to lift up the cover, afraid almost to breathe, lest she should be caught; and looking around to see if her mamma was coming, and then once more at her brother, that she might be certain he was still asleep, gently she put her hand upon the basket, and, without the least noise, drew out a little wooden peg, which fastened down the cover. "Now," thought she, "Master William, I shall see what you have got here." Away she threw the peg, up went the cover of the basket, and whizz--out flew a beautiful white pigeon.
A violent scream from Arabella awoke William, who, seeing the basket open, the pigeon mounted into the air, and his sister"s consternation, immediately guessed what had happened, and addressed her in the following manner:
"You see, my dear Arabella, the consequence of your curious and suspicious temper: I wished to make you a present to-day, because it is your birthday, but you will not allow your friends to procure you an agreeable surprise; for n.o.body in the house can take a single step, or do the least thing, without your watching and following them. I know you have long wished to have a white pigeon, and I have walked two long miles in all this heat, to get one for you. I sat down here, that I might have time to contrive how I should get it into the house without your seeing it, because I did not wish to give you my present till after dinner, when papa and mamma will give you theirs; and whilst I was endeavouring to think on some way to escape your prying eyes, I was so over-powered with fatigue and heat, that I fell fast asleep; and I see you have taken that time to peep into my basket, and save me any farther trouble. You have let my present fly away: I am sorry for it, my dear sister, but you have no one to blame but yourself; and I must confess that I am not half so sorry for your loss, as I am for the fate which attends two poor little young ones which are left in the basket, and who, far from being able to take wing, and follow their mother, are not old enough even to feed themselves, and must soon perish for want of food."
William"s words were but too true; the poor things died the next morning, and Arabella pa.s.sed the whole day in unavailing tears, regret, and sorrow.
THE UNSETTLED BOY.
"I do not think, at last, that I shall like to be a surgeon," said Gustavus to his papa, as he trotted by his side on his little poney.
"Edward Somerville is to be a clergyman: and he has been telling me that he is to go to Oxford, and then he is to have a living, and will have a nice snug parsonage-house, and can keep a horse, and some dogs, and have a pretty garden; whilst I shall be moped up in a town, curing wounds, and mending broken bones--I shall not like it at all."
"It was your own choice," answered his papa; "but if you think you should like better to take orders, I am sure I have no objection."
Three months after this conversation, Gustavus being invited to accompany some friends to see a review, he returned home with his little head so filled with military ideas, that he was certain, he said, nothing could be so delightful and so happy as the life of an officer; and that travelling about and seeing different places was better than all the snug parsonage-houses in England. But, not many months from that time, going with his papa to Portsmouth, to visit his elder brother, who belonged to the navy, he was so struck with the novelty of the scene (having never seen a man of war before), thought there was so much bustle and gaiety in it, that it must be the pleasantest life in the world, and earnestly requested that he might be allowed to go to sea.
His papa now thought it time to represent to him the folly and imprudence of being so unsettled. "My dear boy," said he, taking him affectionately by the hand, "if you continue thus changing your mind every three months, you will never be any thing but an idle fellow, and your youth will be lost in preparations for different professions; or, should you remain long enough fixed to have entered into any line of life, you will not be long before you will desire to quit it for another, of which you will probably be entirely ignorant, and by that means ruin your fortune, and expose yourself to ridicule.
"You make me recollect two boys I once knew, and whose story has often been the subject of conversation, in a winter"s evening, at the house of an old clergyman, from whom I received the first principles of the virtuous education my father had the goodness to bestow upon me.
"Robin was the son of a farmer who lived in the village; his uncle kept a grocer"s shop in the next market town, and had a son named Richard.
They were very clever boys, both understood the business they had been bred to extremely well, and, at the age of sixteen, were become very useful to their parents; but about that time they took it into their heads to grow tired of the employment they were engaged in, and to wish to change places with each other; Robin fancying that he should like extremely to be a grocer, and Richard, that nothing could possibly be so pleasant and agreeable as working in the fields.
"The two fathers, who wished for nothing so much as the happiness of their children, were much grieved at this whim; for they very well knew, that all they had been learning could be of no use to them, if they were now to change their situations, and would be exactly so much time and labour lost, and every thing was to begin again; but Robin and Richard thought differently, and said they could not see that there was any thing to learn.
"Their fathers desired they might change places for one month, and agreed that if in that time they saw no reason why they should not remain, the one to learn the business of a farmer, and the other to serve in a grocer"s shop, they would willingly consent to indulge them in their inclination; and accordingly, on the day on which Richard was sent out to work in a large turnip field, Robin, decorated with a pair of white sleeves, and an ap.r.o.n before him, was placed behind his uncle"s counter.
"The first day he did nothing but grin and stare about him, dip his fingers in the jars of honey, and fill his pockets with currants, raisins, and figs, and he thought it pleasant enough; but the moment he was set at work, he found himself so aukward, that, if he had not been ashamed, he would have begged to return immediately to his plough and his spade. Notwithstanding his earnest endeavours, he could not by any means contrive to tie up a pound of rice, for when he had folded the paper at one end, and, as he thought, secured it, he let it run out at the other; and something of the same kind happening to every thing he undertook, the shop was strewed from one end to the other with rice, tea, and sugar; and his uncle told him he was only wasting his goods, and doing mischief, without being of the smallest use. If he was sent out with any parcels, he was sure to lose his way, and ramble about whole hours together, till somebody was sent in search of him. No one pitied him; he was the jest of the whole family; and, before half the month was expired, he begged in the most earnest manner, that he might return to the farm.
"Richard, who had never been much exposed either to heat or cold, desired his uncle would excuse his working till the cool of the evening; but the farmer laughed at him, and asked him if he thought that would be the way to get his work done. He was therefore obliged to go out and attempt something, but his whole day"s work might have been done in a couple of hours by a country boy of twelve years of age, and would also have been much better done, for poor Richard did not know what he was about.
"At five o"clock he said he must go and get his tea; but his uncle told him they never drank any such slops, and promised him a good mess of porridge for his supper, if he made haste to finish his work.
"Richard _could not_ work; he had done nothing right, and the next day he found it worse and worse; he did not know even how to handle a spade, much less how to make use of it. He sauntered about, with his arms across, the whole long summer"s day, doing nothing, yet tired and uncomfortable: he had n.o.body to speak to--he could not find one idle person; even his aunt, when he went to seek her, was busy in her dairy, and told him to go and mind his business, and not lounge about and disturb those who were inclined to work.
"Every creature he saw had some employment which they understood, and appeared to take pleasure in, whilst he, unable to do the same, and weary of wandering alone, from the garden to the field, and from the field to the garden, wished a thousand times he had never quitted his father"s shop, where, being able to act his part as well as other people, he felt himself of some consequence: now he was n.o.body, he was in every one"s way, and all were tired of him.
"Robin and Richard were glad to return to their own homes, and re-a.s.sume their former employments, in which they prospered so well, that they never after felt the least inclination to quit them, and are at this time living in ease and plenty, respected and esteemed by their friends and neighbours."
CECILIA AND f.a.n.n.y.
Cecilia went to spend a month with her aunt in the country. She was very much pleased at being in a place where she could run in the garden and in the fields as much as she liked, but she would have been much happier if her sister had been with her; and f.a.n.n.y, who fancied she should have no pleasure in any thing without the company of her dear Cecilia, was tired of her absence, and longed for her return, before she had been two days gone.
They could both write tolerably well, and Cecilia, the week after her arrival at her aunt"s, addressed the following letter to her sister:
"MY DEAR f.a.n.n.y,
"I wish mamma could have parted with us both at the same time, that we might have rambled about together in my aunt"s beautiful gardens, and in the fields and meadows which surround the house: but I believe I am wrong in forming such a wish, for she would then be left quite alone, and that I do not desire on any account; if I did, I should appear very selfish, and as if I thought of n.o.body"s pleasure except my own, and that I should be extremely sorry for.
"I am sure you will like to know that I am very happy at my aunt"s, and how good and kind she is to me. All the long border behind the summer-house is to be called our garden, and it is now putting in order for us; and when neither of us are here, my aunt says the gardener shall take care of it: it is full of beautiful rose-trees and flowering shrubs; and Thomas is planting many more, and sowing mignonette, and other seeds, so that when you come here, you will find it quite flourishing.
"My aunt sends me very often with Biddy to walk by the sea-side, and I have found a number of very pretty sh.e.l.ls and sea-weeds, which I shall bring you, and a great many curiosities which I have picked up on the beach. I never saw such things before, and I am sure you never did. We never see any thing where we live but houses and pavement--here I have seen the mowers and the haymakers, and I know how to make hay, and how b.u.t.ter is made, and many other things.
"Good night, my dear f.a.n.n.y! Pray give my duty to dear mamma, and believe me,
"Your most affectionate sister,
"CECILIA."
f.a.n.n.y was delighted at receiving this letter, and wrote the following answer to her sister:
"MY DEAR CECILIA,
"How glad I am to hear that you are so happy in the country! I should certainly like very much to be with you, but not to leave mamma alone; and she is so good, that I am not half so lonely as I thought I should be in your absence. Only think, my dear sister!
she has bought me the sweetest little goldfinch you ever saw, and it is so tame, that the moment I come near the cage, it jumps down from its perch to see what I have got for it.