Melchior's Dream and Other Tales

ore doth beauty

rnament which t

fair, but fai

odour which d

espe

matters of habit. Good habits and bad habits." And she gener

She was an old friend and, I think, a relative of my father, who had married a little below his own rank-my mother being the daughter of a rich manufacturer. My father had died before I can remember things, and Jo

id, planting her gold eye-glasses on her high nose; "and that is why your mouth is growing out of

ts, god

only looks ridiculous; but when you grow up, you'll never have a clean petticoat, or be known for a well-bred woman behind your back, unless you learn to walk as if your legs and y

nal on her lap, and cut them quite straight and

od in much awe of Lady Elizabeth, I did not like to complain aloud of her arrangements. So I turned my doll with a sharp flo

at me for a moment over the top of her gold eye-gla

ith her left hand, and with her right hand took of

said. "It's a great advantage to a woman-indeed, to anyone-to be g

y to see that I was watching her and waiting, put

ine figure, beautiful eyes and mouth, very attractive hands, and most fa

aid I should never be as pretty as Maud Mary Ibbetson, my bosom friend; but when nurse took the good looking-glass out of the nursery, and hung up the wavy one which used to be in her room instead, to keep me from growing vain, I did not dispute her statement that "the less little girl

ot only thought me plain, but gave me no credit for not mindin

courtesy and consideration as if we were grown up. People do not thi

her hand, "I am very sorry if I have

amond rings. I could not mutter to her face, but I said rather under m

should be sorry if you did not grow up nice-looking, which is quite anoth

and told long tales to nurse; and I said I "was sure it wasn't for want of speaking to" nurse that my hair did not wave like Maud Mary's, but that when I asked her

with her sharp accent and accompanying toss.

y little goddaughter, that soft child's face of yours can be pinched and pulled into a nice shape or an ugly shape, ver

res, and eyes, and mouths, and hands, as you sai

odding to work and loafing at play in their native villages, to see what people can do for their own figures. His eyes, Selina, were bright with intelligence and trained powers of observation; and they were beautiful with kindliness, and with the well-bred habit of giving complet

ou mean that I can practise my m

e with your finger and thumb; but your lips, and all the lines of your f

-educated ones, especially in middle life; not because good features and pretty complexions belong to one class more than to another, but because nicer personal habits and stricter discipline of the mind do. A girl who was never taught to brush her teeth, to breathe through the nostrils instead of the lips, and to chew with the back teeth instead of the front, has a very poor chance of growing up with a pretty mouth, as anyone may see who has observed a middle-aged woman of that class munching a meat pie at a railway-station. And if,

oseph bothered me to lend it to him, and now he's broken the glas

always the way if you lend thin

. They kept it a fortnight, and let it rust, and the first time cook put a drop of water into it it leaked; and she said it

th her long hands with

are to hear all that your mother'

nd was glad that Lady E

ur age, I remember I made a nice collection of wafe

ce," I said, laughing. "He got a great many diff

re for discontent. Anything will do. A collection of buttons, for instance. There are a great many kinds; and if ever some trave

be scolded out visiting, and when one had not got into any scrape." But I only said that "nobody at home ever

sider it a foible of ill-educated people, whose interests are very limited, and wh

es, go

always liberal when, by Lady Elizabeth's orders

nd were proud of my self-possession. I had more trouble with the younger ones, who were too young to help me, and whom I was too young to overawe. I was busy one morning writing necessary letters, when James-who was then seventeen, and the under-footman-came to the drawing room and wished to speak to me. When he had wasted a good deal of my time in describing his unwillingness to disturb me, and the years his father had lived in my father's service, I said, 'James, I have important letters to write, and very little time to spare. If you have any complaint to make, will you kindly put it as shortly as you can?' 'I'm sure, my lady, I have no wish to complain,' was James's reply; and thereon his complaints poured forth in a conti

feel towards no other master and mistress, I gave him another five minutes for what he was pleased with. To do him justice, the list was quite a

y saying, 'Well, James, the difficulty seems to be that you have not made up your mind what you do want. I have no tim

re that one could change it for a better. I have no doubt that he had not got all he might lawfully have wished for, but, different as our positions were, no more had I, and we both had to do our duty and make th

to me through the open wind

ouldn't remember whether it was a quarter of a yard of rib

, and one might as well ask the poodle to do anything as Joseph." And it was not till I had flounced out of the drawing-room that I felt rather hot and uncomfortable to remember that I had tossed my head,