Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/72

66 Mr. Dalton could not deny, though he had never given it a moment's consideration before.

"Those dear children," continued she in the blandest tone possible, "ought to have some education; or do you mean that they should run wild about the country, as they do now, when they are grown up?"

"Certainly," answered the gentleman, "they do need instruction."

"And restraint still more. I cannot tell you this morning how shocked I was when Mrs. Dalrymple, was calling here (you have yourself often observed what elegant girls her daughters are), to have Julia and Ellen scampering in at the drawing-room windows, covered, with dirt, and throwing down the flower-stand where was the very plant which Mrs. DarlympleDalrymple [sic] had gone there to see." This narration touched Mr. Dalton on the tenderest point: he had the greatest horror of noise or any thing like romping in a girl. A woman, in his idea, could not be too quiet; and this riotous conduct in Ellen and Julia was at