Page:Orange Grove.djvu/78

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condemned for the benefit of the human race as he said, but there are those truly exalting and beneficent in their influence, whence we may derive a more thorough knowledge of human nature, than from any other source."

"I think it would be a great advantage to Mrs. Greenwood to read something in that line besides Pilgrim's Progress. She has the most narrow, contracted mind of any body I ever knew,' and thinks there can be no good people but those who believe as she does. She will not allow Priscilla to leave her apron strings except to go to school, and then gives her strict orders how to behave, forbidding her to join the other girls in any of their sports. If she happens to laugh out loud at home her mother is as cross and crabbed as a sea owl. I should be perfectly miserable to live so. I couldn't. She wouldn't control me as she does her."

"That's what she wouldn't; you spoke the truth then, Rosa, but what kind of an animal is the sea owl?" ejaculated Walter.

"Seeing you are so smart, you may find out that by your own knowledge, too."

"How happens it that you and she have contracted so much of an intimacy when there is no resemblance between yon, and you do not like her mother well enough to enjoy going there very much."

"Of course that's reason enough for her to like her," said Walter.

"Well, she talks upon subjects that I like to talk about, and though we do not agree, I enjoy drawing her out, and sometimes she gets pretty well puzzled