“Really, it must be a very difficult thing to educate a young lady up to such a pitch as this.”

The parents, carried away by their feelings, replied—­

“Yes; when she is married, she will hardly bring shame upon her husband’s family.  Besides what she did just now, she can weave garlands of flowers round torches, and we had her taught to paint a little;” and as they began to show a little conceit, the preacher said—­

“I am sure this is something quite out of the common run.  Of course she knows how to rub the shoulders and loins, and has learnt the art of shampooing?”

The master of the house bristled up at this and answered—­

“I may be very poor, but I’ve not fallen so low as to let my daughter learn shampooing.”

The learned man, smiling, replied, “I think you are making a mistake when you put yourself in a rage.  No matter whether her family be rich or poor, when a woman is performing her duties in her husband’s house, she must look upon her husband’s parents as her own.  If her honoured father-in-law or mother-in-law fall ill, her being able to plait flowers and paint pictures and make tea will be of no use in the sick-room.  To shampoo her parents-in-law, and nurse them affectionately, without employing either shampooer or servant-maid, is the right path of a daughter-in-law.  Do you mean to say that your daughter has not yet learnt shampooing, an art which is essential to her following the right path of a wife?  That is what I meant to ask just now.  So useful a study is very important.”

At this the master of the house was ashamed, and blushing made many apologies, as I have heard.  Certainly, the harp and guitar are very good things in their way; but to attend to nursing their parents is the right road of children.  Lay this story to heart, and consider attentively where the right road lies.  People who live near haunts of pleasure become at last so fond of pleasure, that they teach their daughters nothing but how to play on the harp and guitar, and train them up in the manners and ways of singing-girls, but teach them next to nothing of their duties as daughters; and then very often they escape from their parents’ watchfulness, and elope.  Nor is this the fault of the girls themselves, but the fault of the education which they have received from their parents.  I do not mean to say that the harp and guitar, and songs and dramas, are useless things.  If you consider them attentively, all our songs incite to virtue and condemn vice.  In the song called “The Four Sleeves,” for instance, there is the passage, “If people knew beforehand all the misery that it brings, there would be less going out with young ladies, to look at the flowers at night.”  Please give your attention to this piece of poetry.  This is the meaning of it:—­When a young man and a young lady set up a flirtation without the consent of their parents, they think that it will all be very delightful, and find themselves very much deceived.  If they knew what a sad and cruel world this is, they would not act as they do.  The quotation is from a song of remorse.  This sort of thing but too often happens in the world.