I've told you of that before. You'll swallow it one day, and then
you'll get perichondritis and die."
She appeared to be solving a problem.
"All grown-up people seem to know everything," she summarized.
There are times when I doubt if children are as simple as they look.
If it be sheer stupidity that prompts them to make remarks of this
character, one should pity them, and seek to improve them. But if
it be not stupidity? well then, one should still seek to improve
them, but by a different method.
The other morning I overheard the nurse talking to this particular
specimen. The woman is a most worthy creature, and she was
imparting to the child some really sound advice. She was in the
middle of an unexceptional exhortation concerning the virtue of
silence, when Dorothea interrupted her with--
"Oh, do be quiet, Nurse. I never get a moment's peace from your
chatter."
Such an interruption discourages a woman who is trying to do her
duty.
Last Tuesday evening she was unhappy. Myself, I think that rhubarb
should never be eaten before April, and then never with lemonade.
Her mother read her a homily upon the subject of pain. It was
impressed upon her that we must be patient, that we must put up with
the trouble that God sends us.
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