one has a right to hinder me from having it.

_Worthy._ Certainly. But a man's own prudence, his love of propriety
and sense of duty, ought to prevent him from doing an improper
thing, as effectually as if there were somebody to hinder him.

_Bragwell._ Now, I think a man is a fool who is hindered from having
any thing he has a mind to; unless indeed, he is in want of money to
pay for it. I am no friend to debt. A poor man must want on.

_Worthy._ But I hope my children have not learned to want any
thing which is not proper for them. They are very industrious; they
attend to business all day, and in the evening they sit down to
their work and a good book. I take care that neither their reading
nor conversation shall excite any desires or tastes unsuitable to
their condition. They have little vanity, because the kind of
knowledge they have is of too sober a sort to raise admiration; and
from that vanity which attends a little smattering of frivolous
accomplishments, I have secured them, by keeping them in total
ignorance of all such. I think they live in the fear of God. I
trust they are humble and pious, and I am sure they seem cheerful
and happy. If I am sick, it is pleasant to see them dispute which
shall wait upon me; for they say the maid can not do it so tenderly
as themselves.

This part of the discourse staggered Bragwell. An involuntary tear
rushed into his eye. Vain as he was, he could not help feeling what
a difference a religious and a worldly education made on the heart,
and how much the former regulated even the natural temper. Another
thing which surprised him was, that these girls living a life of
domestic piety, without any public diversions, should be so very
cheerful and happy; while his own daughters, who were never
contradicted, and were indulged with continual amusements, were
always sullen and ill tempered. That they who were more humored,
should be less grateful, and they who were more amused less happy,
disturbed him much. He envied Worthy the tenderness of his children,
though he would not own it, but turned it off thus:

_Bragwell._ But my girls are too smart to make mops of, that is the
truth. Though ours is a lonely village, it is wonderful to see how
soon they get the fashions. What with the descriptions in the
magazines, and the pictures in the pocket-books, they have them in a
twinkling and out-do their patterns all to nothing. I used to take
in the _Country Journal_, because it was