Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/123

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE MANUAL OF PERFECT GENTILITY.
113

to other things. We shall be quick to notice if they want anything that we can get for them. We shall not answer at random, or giggle, or say the wrong thing. We shall not loll back in our chairs, as Georgie is doing at this moment, with one foot cocked over the other knee, and a paint-brush in our mouths."

"Mamma!" And Georgie hastily recovered the upright position, and took her paint-brush from between her lips.

"We shall not drum idly on window-panes, as Gertrude was doing just now, for fear that the little noise will be disagreeable to our neighbors."

"Now, mamma!"

"We shall not walk carelessly between any one and the fire, because we shall be afraid of making them cold; nor shall we upset a work-basket while doing so, as Marian upset mine just now."

"Mamma, I do believe you are giving us all a scolding; I shall just stop you." And Marian flung her arms round her mother's