Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/332

 ment severe, at the same time a moral lesson, I have ordered her to copy the chapter which she would not read ten times, and I have treated her with this severity above all, because I have perceived that she has, during the last few days—whether from Stern or not I do not know—taken up ideas which appear to me to be dangerous to morality, to which my wife and I are so much attached. I heard her sing, for instance, a French song—by Béranger, I believe—in which the poet pities a poor old beggar, who in her youth sung at a theatre, and yesterday at breakfast she had no stays onMary, I mean—that was really not respectable.

I have likewise to confess that Fred brought home little good from the prayer-meeting. I had been much pleased with his sitting so quietly in church. He did not move, and always looked at the pulpit, but afterwards I heard that Betsy Rosemeyer was sitting near it. I said nothing about it, for one must not be too severe towards young people, and the Rosemeyers are a respectable firm. They have given their eldest daughter, who married Bruggeman the druggist, something very nice, and therefore I believe that this will keep Fred away from the Wester Market, which is very gratifying to me, because I am so attached to morality.

But I am grieved to see that this does not prevent Fred from hardening his heart, like Pharaoh, who was less guilty, because he had no father to show him continually