"Miss Juliet!" cried her aunt, who entered just in time to hear her
niece speak her thoughts aloud, "I am perfectly astonished at you. Have
you no sense of decorum?"
"Pshaw, Dolly!" said the Captain, still laughing. "It was quite
accidental. Your over delicate ladies are the most indelicate people in
the world. I am sure what the child said was perfectly natural."
"Nature, Captain Whitmore, is not the best book for young ladies to
study," said Miss Dorothy, drawing herself up to her full height. "If we
were to act entirely from her suggestions, we should reduce ourselves to
a level with the brutes. Young ladies should never venture a remark
until they have duly considered what they have to say. They should know
how to keep the organ of speech in due subjection."
"And pray, Dolly, will you inform me at what age a lady should commence
this laudable act of self-denial? for I am pretty certain that your
first lesson is still to learn."
Oh, how poor Aunt Dorothy flounced and flew, at this speech! how she let
her tongue run on, without bit or bridle, while vindicating her injured
honor from this foul aspersion, quite forgetting her own theory in the
redundancy of her practice! There never was, by her own account, such a
discreet, amiable, well-spoken, benevolent, and virtuous gentlewoman!
And how the cruel Captain continued to laugh at, and quiz, and draw her
out: until Juliet, in order to cause a diversion in her aunt's favor,
pinched her favorite black cat's ear.
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