sat down on a garden seat, with an intention of waiting there till Mrs. Addis should summon them.
Harriet could not refrain from expressing a wish that it was time to go home; to which Mrs. Benson replied that she did not wonder at her desire to return; "But," said she, "my dear, as the world was not made merely for us, we must endeavour to be patient under every disagreeable circumstance we meet with. I know what opinion you have formed of Mrs. Addis, and should not have brought you to be a spectator of her follies, had I not hoped that an hour or two passed in her company would afford you a lesson which might be useful to you through life. I have before told you that our affections towards the inferior parts of the creation should be properly regulated; you have, in your friend Lucy Jenkins and her brother, seen instances of cruelty to them which I am sure you will never be inclined to imitate; but I was apprehensive you might fall into the contrary extreme, which is equally blameable. Mrs. Addis, you see, has absolutely transferred the affection which she ought to feel for her child to creatures which would really be much happier without it. As for Puss, who lies in the cradle in all her splendour, I will engage to say she would pass her time pleasanter in a basket of clean straw, placed in a situation where
