Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/137

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cruel tyranny; and I cannot bear being treated by the child I doat on as a tyrant."

"Still my dear Sir," said Mrs Mason, "as Miss Stewart is not deficient in understanding, you might, I think, by a little firmness, teach her the propriety of submitting to your will."

"Alas!" returned Mr Stewart, "she always thinks herself in the right; and it is impossible, utterly impossible, to convince her, in any instance, that she is otherwise. Her mind got a wrong bias from the first, and I fear it is now too late to think of curing it. But I have myself to blame. Had she been brought up with the rest of my family, under the watchful eye of their dear mother, she would never have been thus froward and intractable; yet I know not how our other children escaped spoiling, for my wife was all tenderness and indulgence."

"True," replied Mrs Mason, "but her indulgence would be of a nature tending