Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/223

 which timely attention would have spared. Would it not be well to have your children taught such habits of attention and regularity, as would make you more easy, and them more useful, both to themselves and you?"

"As for my bairns," returned Mrs MacClarty, "if they pleasure me, they do weel enough."

"There's a great spice o' good sense in what Mrs Mason has said though," said the farmer; "but its no easy for folk like us to be put out o' their ain gait."

In truth, Mrs MacClarty was one of those seemingly good-natured people, who are never to be put out of their own way; for she was obstinate to a degree; and so perfectly self-satisfied, that she could not bear to think it possible, that she might in any thing do better than she did. Thus, though she would not argue in favour of sloth and dirt in general, she nevertheless continued to be slothful and dirty, because she vindicated herself in every