MTJE^NID^. 399 



surely^ if that were put in tlie telling way the case admits 

 ofj their moral sense must make some response^ and de- 

 clare itself, ia showing tenderness for pdte tendre, respect 

 for the age of old china, and some reflection, however 

 transient, on the cost of new mirrors : who knows, if the 

 improvement were to begin, what treasures servants 

 might not one day become : when Mary, in place of lay- 

 ing infanticidal hands upon 'biscuit' babies, sweetly sleep- 

 ing, unconscious of their danger, wUl handle them gently 

 as her own ; and remembering the weakness of her sex, 

 show forbearing indulgence to the very frail, tight-laced 

 shepherdesses placed under her charge ; being as vigilant 

 to prevent a slip, as now to conceal a flaw, which sooner 

 or later must come to Hght, and for which, as for cracked 

 female reputations in general, there is no remedy ; a time, 

 above all, when breakages, however irreparable, shall be 

 openly confessed, and 'nobody' cease to bear the brunt 

 of ' somebody's' mischief; when it can be said, in giving 

 the character of an active housemaid, ' she really con- 

 siders valuables as things to be valued ; sweeps cleanly 

 but carefully, brushes lightly, dusts glass and china with- 

 out partiality, looks virtuously upon her master's virtii, 

 and never broke either her word or a porcelain vase all 

 the while she was in our service.' Alas ! up to the 

 present hour there is not even the dawn of such bright 

 prospects : ancillary reformation has not yet begun to be 

 thought of J cats are not more detrimental to mice, nor 

 boys to birds' eggs, than these smashing wenches to Saxe, 

 Chelsea, and Sevres teacups, and too often, in addition to 

 the general instability of all things human, that of china 

 in particular, in such hands, is made painftdly conspi- 

 cuous ; and the luckless proprietor, standing amidst the 

 wrack and ruins of his fictile treasures, is fain to seek 

 comfort by adopting breakage as a law of nature and the 

 lot of mortals, and by taking the emblematic view of such 

 misfortunes, suggested by the French epigram : — 



