Bible would show; and it is a pity people do not consult it
oftener. They direct their plowing and sowing by the information of
the Almanac: why will they not consult the Bible for the direction
of their hearts and lives? Rebecca was of a violent, ungovernable
temper; and that very neatness which is in itself so pleasing, in
her became a sin, for her affection to her husband and children was
quite lost in an over anxious desire to have her house reckoned the
nicest in the parish. Rebecca was also a proof that a poor woman may
be as vain as a rich one, for it was not so much the comfort of
neatness, as the praise of neatness, which she coveted. A spot on
her hearth, or a bit of rust on a brass candlestick, would throw her
into a violent passion. Now it is very right to keep the hearth
clean and the candlestick bright, but it is very wrong so to set
one's affections on a hearth or a candlestick, as to make one's self
unhappy if any trifling accident happens to them; and if Rebecca had
been as careful to keep her heart without spot, or her life without
blemish, as she was to keep her fire-irons free from either, she
would have been held up in this history, not as a warning, but as a
pattern, and in that case her nicety would have come in for a part
of the praise. It was no fault in Rebecca, but a merit, that her oak
table was so bright you could almost see to put your cap on in it;
but it was no merit but a fault, that when John, her husband, laid
down his cup of beer upon it so as to leave a mark, she would fly
out into so terrible a passion that all the children were forced to
run to corners; now poor John having no corner to run to, ran to the
ale-house, till that which was at first a refuge too soon became a
pleasure.

Rebecca never wished her children to learn to read, because she said
it would make them lazy, and she herself had done very well without
it. She would keep poor Hester from church to stone the space under
the stairs in fine patterns and flowers. I don't pretend to say
there was any harm in this little decoration, it looks pretty
enough, and it is better to let the children do that than nothing.
But still these are not things to set one's heart upon; and besides
Rebecca only did it as a trap for praise; for she was sulky and
disappointed if any ladies happened to call in and did not seem
delighted with the flowers which she used to draw with a burnt stick
on the whitewash of the chimney corners. Besides,