THE INDOLENT CORRECTED. gi

‘Oh! mamma, how culpableIam! If I have no
talents and no education, I at least know the elements
of all I have been taught’

‘I daresay that, my child ; and if you would only
apply yourself seriously, you might yet regain part of
the money you have lost; but to do that, you must
have more perseverance and activity than you have
hitherto displayed. I know well—thanks to your
fortune and beauty—that you think you have less
need of education than other people ; but is it reason-
able, because you possess those fragile and un-
certain advantages, that you should disdain the more
lasting ones, which, once acquired thoroughly, can
seldom be lost or forgotten? Do you really think,
Fglantine, that sensible people are to be caught
by beauty alone? ’tis soon lost, my: child; a fit of
sickness may rob us of it for ever. Can riches make
us happy? No. They may contribute to our happi-
ness, but the mind must be cultivated to enable us to
bear the many ills we are subject to in this world. If
your father’s fortune were ruined, what would you be?’

These last words woke Eglantine from her reflec-
tions. She looked at her mother with fear. Doralice
ceased speaking, lifted her eyes to heaven, and after
a few moments’ silence, which Eglantine did not dare