Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/178

 displeasure, "not wishing to burden her with precepts"; and waits for a "glaring example" to show the little girl the unloveliness of permanent dirt. This example is soon afforded by Mrs. Dowdy, who comes opportunely to visit them, and whose reluctance to perform even the simple ablutions common to the period is as resolute as Slovenly Peter's.

In the matter of tuition, Mrs. Mason is comparatively lenient. Caroline and Mary, though warned that "idleness must always be intolerable, because it is only an irksome consciousness of existence" (words which happily have no meaning for childhood), are, on the whole, less saturated with knowledge than Miss Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy; and Harry and Lucy lead rollicking lives by contrast with "Edwin and Henry," or "Anna and Louisa," or any other little pair of heroes and heroines. Edwin and Henry are particularly ill used, for they are supposed to be enjoying a holiday with their father, "the worthy Mr. Friendly," who makes "every domestic incident, the vegetable world, sickness and death, a real source of instruction to his