make much of this small slip of
hers; besides I think it was a quite natural slip, for by heredity and
habit ours was a religious household, and it was a common thing with us
whenever anybody did a handsome thing, to give the credit of it to
Providence, without examining into the matter. This may be called
automatic religion--in fact that is what it is; it is so used to its
work that it can do it without your help or even your privity; out of
all the facts and statistics that may be placed before it, it will
always get the one result, since it has never been taught to seek any
other. It is thus the unreflecting cause of much injustice. As we have
seen, it betrayed Susy into an injustice toward me. It had to be
automatic, for she would have been far from doing me an injustice when
in her right mind. It was a dear little biographer, and she meant me no
harm, and I am not censuring her now, but am only desirous of correcting
in advance an erroneous impression which her words would be sure to
convey to a reader's mind. No elaboration of this matter is necessary;
it is sufficient to say _I_ provided the ducks.

It was in Hartford. The greensward sloped down-hill from the house to
the sluggish little river that flowed through the grounds, and Patrick,
who was fertile in good ideas, had early conceived the idea of having
home-made ducks for our table. Every morning he drove them from the
stable down to the river, and the children were always there to see and
admire the waddling white procession; they were there again at sunset to
see Patrick conduct the procession back to its lodgings in the stable.
But this was not always a gay and happy holiday show, with joy in it for
the witnesses; no, too frequently there was a tragedy connected with it,
and then there were tears and pain for the children. There was a
stranded log or two in the river, and on these certain families of
snapping-turtles used to congregate and drowse in the sun and give
thanks, in their dumb way, to Providence for benevolence extended to
them. It was but another instance of misplaced credit; it was the young
ducks that those pious reptiles were so thankful for--whereas they were
_my_ ducks. I bought the ducks.

When a crop of young ducks, not yet quite old enough for the table but
approaching that age, began to join the procession, and paddle around in
the sluggish water, and give thanks--not to me--for that privilege, the
snapping-turtles would suspend the