is long! What a little fright that child is,
to be sure!

_Mother_. Pray, Fanny, was that remark useful or necessary?

_Fanny_. Oh, but mamma, I assure you, my tongue is quite well now.

_Mother_. I am sorry for it, my dear. Do you know, I should think it
well worth while to bite my tongue every day if there were no other
means of keeping it in order.

At this the girls laughed; but their mother, resuming her gravity,
thus continued:

"My dear girls, I should before now have put a stop to this idle
gossiping, if I had not hoped to convince you of the folly of it. It
is no wonder, I confess, that at your age you should learn to imitate
a style of remark which is but too prevalent in society. Nothing,
indeed, is more contagious. But let me also tell you, that girls of
your age, and of your advantages, are capable of seeing the meanness
of it, and ought to despise it. It is the chief end of education to
raise the minds of women above such trifling as this. But if a young
person who has been taught to think, whose taste has been cultivated,
and who might therefore possess internal resources, has as much idle
curiosity about the affairs of her neighbors, and is as fond of
retailing petty scandal concerning them, as an uneducated woman, it
proves that her mind is incurably mean and vulgar, and that
cultivation is lost upon her.

"This sort of gossiping, my dear girls, is the disgrace of our sex.
The pursuits of women lie necessarily within a narrow sphere, and they
naturally sink, unless raised by refinement, or by strong principle,
into that littleness of character, for which even their own husbands
and fathers (if they are men of sense) are tempted to despise them.
The minds of men, from their engagements in business, necessarily take
a larger range; and they are, in general, too much occupied with
concerns comparatively important to enter into the minute details
which amuse women. But women of education have no such plea to urge.
When your father and I direct you to this or that pursuit, it is not
so much for the sake of your possessing that particular branch of
knowledge, but that by knowledge in general you may become intelligent
and superior, and that you may be furnished with resources which will
save you from the miserable necessity of seeking amusement from
intercourse with your neighbors, and an acquaintance with their
affairs.

"Let us suppose, now, that this morning you had been all more
industriously i