Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/196

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196
LIVE AND LET LIVE.

by asking where she had learned the fact. She said her mother was trying to have her brother learn to take care of silkworms, and that, seeing the advertisement of a book about them, she had purchased and read it before she sent it. "There's an example for you, my children," said Mr. Hyde; "you see that, by keeping your eyes and ears open, you may get knowledge on every hand, and communicate it." He then proceeded to state some facts in relation to the varieties of the worm and the mulberry, the extent and value of the silk product, and the immense amount of our importation of the manufactured article. Lucy was better qualified by her early education than most persons in her position to profit by such a conversation, and it seemed to her a great privilege to have the place of waiter in such a family.[1] She naturally compared the scene before her to corresponding ones; to the têtê-à-têtê breakfast at the Broadsons', where the steril talk, on the part of the husband, was of profits projected or achieved; on the part of his helpmate, a boast of a bargain, a pharisaical vaunt, or some improved plan of stinting in domestic economy. The Ardleys did not suffer so much by the comparison, for there were the redeeming qualities of good-humour and kind-

  1. There is a volume of poems about to issue from the press in this city, written by a person whose life has been spent in domestic service. Upon some one expressing to the author surprise at the knowledge indicated by the poems, and asking where she obtained it, she replied, "I have always lived in the society of intelligent and cultivated people." And so she had. Some of these poems would not dishonour any name in our land. We trust their publication will increase the consideration of the fortunate for their "inferiors only in position