I really think you will
make things livelier here than they have been since Mr. Winthrop was a
lad. Just for one moment, mother, try to imagine his disgust when he
finds his high-bred ward knitting socks for Dan Blake's little monkeys."
"Dan Blake has no children, Hubert," his mother said, gravely; "and I
am not going to trouble myself about what may never happen. It is not
necessary for Mr. Winthrop to know how his ward spends her spare time and
pocket money."
"But he would as soon think of exchanging civilities with his own dumb
animals as with those folk on the Mill Road; and, yet, right under his
nose these little arrangements getting manufactured! It is carrying the
war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance."
"Is that a specimen of your college conversation, Hubert? If so, you
might better remain at Oaklands."
"Surely, mother; you don't expect us to talk like a sewing society or
select gathering of maiden ladies," Hubert said with some disgust. "Fancy
a lot of young fellows picking and choosing their words as if they were a
company of prigs."
"If every word we utter continues to vibrate in the air until the final
wreck of matter, as some scientists suppose, surely we can't be too
careful of our words, my son."
"If we believe all the nonsense those chaps who are continually meddling
with nature's secrets tell us, we should sit with shut lips and folded
hands lest we would destroy the equilibrium of the universe, or our own
destiny. There is any quantity of bosh let loose on poor, long-suffering
humanity, and labeled Science.
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