y
business to do next.

I have already mentioned that Lucilla and I had idled away the whole
afternoon, woman-like, in talking of ourselves. You will best understand
what course my reflections took, if I here relate the chief particulars
which Lucilla communicated to me, concerning her own singular position in
her father's house.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

A Cage of Finches

LARGE families are--as my experience goes--of two sorts. We have the
families whose members all admire each other. And we have the families
whose members all detest each other. For myself, I prefer the second
sort. Their quarrels are their own affair; and they have a merit which
the first sort are never known to possess--the merit of being sometimes
able to see the good qualities of persons who do not possess the
advantage of being related to them by blood. The families whose members
all admire each other, are families saturated with insufferable conceit.
You happen to speak of Shakespeare, among these people, as a type of
supreme intellectual capacity. A female member of the family will not
fail to convey to you that you would have illustrated your meaning far
more completely if you had referred her to "dear Papa." You are out
walking with a male member of the household; and you say of a woman who
passes, "What a charming creature!" Your companion smiles at your
simplicity, and wonders whether you have ever seen his sister when she is
dressed for a ball. These are the families who cannot be separated
without corresponding with each other every day. They read you extracts
from their letters, and say, "Where is the writer by profession who can
equal this?" They talk of their private affairs, in your presence--and
appear to think that you ought to be interested too. They enjoy their own
jokes across you at table--and wonder how it is that you are not amused.
In domestic circles of this sort the sisters sit habitually on the
brothers' knees; and the husbands inquire into the wives' ailments, in
public, as unconcernedly as if they were closeted in their own room. When
we arrive at a more advanced stage of civilization, the State will supply
cages for these intolerable people; and notices will be posted at the
corners of streets, "Beware of Number Twelve: a family in a state of
mutual admiration is hung up there!"

I gathered from Lucilla that the Finches were of the second order of
large families, as mentioned above. Hardly one of the members of this