ted
playthings; "others apart sat on _the floor_ retired," and more
deliberately employed in picking to pieces their little gaudy works of
art. A pretty girl, who had a beautiful wax doll on her lap, almost as
big as herself, was pulling out its eyes, that she might see how they
were put in. Another, weary of this costly baby, was making a little
doll of rags. A turbulent-looking boy was tearing out the parchment from
a handsome new drum, that he might see, as he told us, where the noise
came from. These I forgave: they had meaning in their mischief.

Another, having kicked about a whole little gilt library, was sitting,
with the decorated pages torn asunder at his feet, reading a little
dirty penny book, which the kitchen-maid had bought of a hawker at the
door. The Persian carpet was strewed with the broken limbs of a painted
horse, almost as large as a poney, while the discontented little master
was riding astride on a long rough stick. A bigger boy, after having
broken the panels of a fine gilt coach, we saw afterwards in the
court-yard nailing together a few dirty bits of ragged elm boards, to
make himself a wheel-barrow.

"Not only the disciple of the fastidious Jean Jacques," exclaimed I,
"but the sound votary of truth and reason, must triumph at such an
instance of the satiety of riches, and the weariness of ignorance and
idleness. One such practical instance of the insufficiency of affluence
to _bestow_ the pleasures which industry must _buy_; one such actual
exemplification of the folly of supposing that injudicious profusion and
mistaken fondness can supply that pleasure which must be worked out
before it can be enjoyed, is worth a whole folio of argument or
exhortation. The ill-bred little flock paid no attention to us, and only
returned a rude 'n--o' or 'ye--s' to our questions."

"Caroline," said Sir John, "these painted ruins afford a good lesson for
us. We must desire our rich uncles and our generous god-mothers to make
an alteration in their presents, if they can not be prevailed upon to
withhold them."

"It is a sad mistake," said Mr. Stanley, "to suppose that youth wants to
be so incessantly amused. They want not pleasures to be chalked out for
them. Lay a few cheap and coarse materials in their way, and let their
own busy inventions be suffered to work. They have abundant pleasure in
the mere freshness and novelty of life, its unbroken health, its elastic
spirit, its versatile temper, and its eve