Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/13

8 which this peculiar kind of retrospection might be, and no doubt often is, carried on with lasting benefit to herself and her family. Yet, on the other hand, it is deeply to be regretted, that the frivolous or low conversation of an ignorant nurse, should so often be permitted to rob these golden hours of their real value, by the introduction of idle jests and vulgar gossip, gathered up from other families and households, where the nurse has been in some measure a confidential, though temporary servant; and where she must necessarily have formed but a very imperfect idea of the general state of things within the domestic circle. How many a private history, whether true or false, has been thus detailed—how many a character has been robbed of its good name — how many an injurious suspicion has been excited which time could never afterward obliterate, those women best can tell, who have found the first weeks of a mother's life hang heavily upon their hands, because shut out from their accustomed occupations and amusements; and who have consequently resorted to this means, in the hope of obtaining relief from the burden of their own dull thoughts.

I have no voluntary condemnation to pass upon the class of necessary assistants to which these expressions refer. So far from it, I have often thought that their unremitting exertions, their cheerful devotedness to the comfort of a family in which they can feel no particular interest; and, above all, their care and solicitude for the preservation of a young life which can never be anything to them—entitles these nurses, especially, to gratitude and respect. That they are not a more enlightened class of women, is certainly no fault of theirs; and if they do sometimes make family histories fill up the long hours of their attendance in a sick-room, the blame of their doing so attaches far more to those who listen, than to those who tell.

But what is the young mother to do under these circumstances, who has never cultivated the habit of serious thought, and still less that of self-examination? By such there is but one thing to be done—to begin to cultivate these habits now. Hitherto she may have believed that she was acting only for herself, and therefore she may have been willing, to a certain extent, to reap the