THE SAYINGS OF MARJORIE. 
437 
say her grace. Naturally she was asked why, 
and her answer was, “ Because it wasn’t 
worth it.” 
From her very earliest youth we had always 
impressed on her the enormity of any kind 
of boasting or showing off. She often would 
call to order anyone who appeared in any way 
guilty of this offence. 
Knowing this, her Aunt Sydney on one occa- 
sion in the nursery commenced to relate 
what a charming child she had been in her 
early youth, and how obedient, sweet, and 
good everyone pronounced her to be. Mar- 
jorie stood this for some time in silence, 
but getting redder and redder, until at last, 
almost crying, she burst out, “ Proud praising 
thing, Aunt Sirmy; proud praising thing I” 
It was about this time, when staying at 
Weston, she became friends with a very nice 
little girl of about her age, who had been 
brought up by her grandmother, who was 
rather strict in her views, and had — as is 
often the custom with the aged — insisted on 
the child doing only what she, at the age of 
eighty, thought right and amusing. The 
contrast between the two children used to 
amuse me ; they seemed like two little figures 
out of the Cavalier and Roundhead times. 
One afternoon a notice was posted on the 
dining-room door : “ There will be a great 
entertainment at six-thirty in the dining- 
room, followed by a supper, followed by 
a ball, followed by a prayer meeting.” 
Obviously, I should say, this curious double 
sandwich was the result of alternate choices 
by each child. 
About this time she, w r ith the assistance of 
her maid— as that official was called when 
she became eight— s arted a magazine, called 
“ The Magazine,” which, unlike most of its 
brethren, w r as killed by its immediate success. 
Everyone heard of it, and sixpenny sub- 
scriptions poured in ; even half a crown was 
given, and one of our most popular novelists 
offered an article, if worthy. Poor Marjorie 
got worried and rather frightened, and wrote 
to her grandmothei : “ You know, granny 
1 want you to be the editor, as 1 feel too young 
to manage it up against all these grand people.” 
This, however, was declined, and she and the 
maid ran it alone. 
The maid's articles were rather on the 
dismal side. There was always a corpse, 
sometimes several, and they generally soli- 
loquized after they w'ere dead on the unkind- 
ness of their relatives. Each number com- 
menced with a letter from the editor. One 
ran, “ The Magazine is getting on very well. 
I am very pleased with the Magazine. There 
is lots of money in the money-box; the 
editor is thinking of buying a camera, if 
anything exciting has happened in the place 
where you live, please let me know'. If you 
don’t like the Magazine, don’t be afraid to 
say so. And now I must stop. — Yours truly, 
The Editor.” 
Her dictation and other lesson-books were 
my delight. Take, for instance, a <c fuggy 
capiler,” when she meant a fuzzy caterpillar. 
But later they became the duller as they 
gained in wisdom, like many of our greatest 
men. And then, too, her early letters — one 
lo her mother, in which she said : (< Daddy is 
quite well, and still parts his hair in the 
