Page:A New England Tale.djvu/26

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A NEW-ENGLAND TALE.
16

“There,” she said, “taking on despotly.———A body would think,” added she, “that she had lost her uncles and aunts as well as her father and mother. And she might as well,” (she continued, in a tone low enough not to be heard,) for any good they will do her.”

The eldest sister began the conference by saying, “That she trusted it was not expected she should take Jane upon her hands—that she was not so well off as either of her sisters—that to be sure she had no children; but then Mr. Daggett and herself calculated to do a great deal for the Foreign Missionary Society; that no longer ago than that morning, Mr. D. and she had agreed to pay the expense of one of the young Cherokees at the School at ———; that there was a great work going on in the world, and as long as they had the heart given them to help it, they could not feel it their duty to withdraw any aid for a mere worldly purpose!”

Mrs. Convers (the second sister) said that she had not any religion, and she did not mean to pretend to any; that she had ways enough to spend her money without sending it to Owyhee or the Foreign School; that she and her husband had worked hard, and saved all for their children; and now they meant they should make as good a figure as any body's children in the country. It took a great deal of money, she said, to pay the dancing-master, and the drawing-master, and the music-master; it was quite impossible for her sisters to think how much it took to dress a family of girls