Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/275

 brought to order; and, finding that they had no one to make excuses for their disobedience, quietly performed their allotted tasks. They began to taste the pleasure of praise, and, encouraged by approbation, endeavoured to deserve it; so that, though their tempers had been too far spoiled to be brought at once into subjection, Mrs Mason hoped that, by steadiness, she should succeed in reforming them.

Mrs MacClarty, who was not so changed by sickness, or so absorbed in grief, as to be indifferent to the world and its concerns, fretted at the length of her confinement, which was rendered doubly grievous to her, from the hints she occasionally received of the new methods of management introduced by Mrs Mason, which she could on no account believe equal to her own. Her friend and benefactress became the object of her jealousy and aversion. The neighbours, with whom she had cultivated the greatest intimacy,