Whatever I do, and whatever I say,
     Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn’t the way;
     When she was a girl (forty summers ago)
     Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

     Dear aunt!  If I only would take her advice! 
     But I like my own way, and I find it so nice! 
     And besides, I forget half the things I am told;
     But they all will come back to me—­when I am old.

     If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt,
     He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;
     She would never endure an impertinent stare,
     It is horrid, she says, and I mustn’t sit there.

     A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own,
     But it is n’t quite safe to be walking alone;
     So I take a lad’s arm,—­just for safety, you know,
     But Aunt Tabitha tells me they didn’t do so.

     How wicked we are, and how good they were then! 
     They kept at arm’s length those detestable men;
     What an era of virtue she lived in!—­But stay
     Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha’s day?

     If the men were so wicked, I’ll ask my papa
     How he dared to propose to my darling mamma;
     Was he like the rest of them?  Goodness!  Who knows
     And what shall I say if a wretch should propose?

     I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin,
     What a wonder Aunt Tabitha’s aunt must have been! 
     And her grand-aunt—­it scares me—­how shockingly sad. 
     That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!

     A martyr will save us, and nothing else can;
     Let me perish—­to rescue some wretched young man! 
     Though when to the altar a victim I go,
     Aunt Tabitha’ll tell me she never did so!

IV

The old Master has developed one quality of late for which I am afraid I hardly gave him credit.  He has turned out to be an excellent listener.

—­I love to talk,—­he said,—­as a goose loves to swim.  Sometimes I think it is because I am a goose.  For I never talked much at any one time in my life without saying something or other I was sorry for.

—­You too!—­said I—­Now that is very odd, for it is an experience I have habitually.  I thought you were rather too much of a philosopher to trouble yourself about such small matters as to whether you had said just what you meant to or not; especially as you know that the person you talk to does not remember a word of what you said the next morning, but is thinking, it is much more likely, of what she said, or how her new dress looked, or some other body’s new dress which made—­hers look as if it had been patched together from the leaves of last November.  That’s what she’s probably thinking about.

—­She!—­said the Master, with a look which it would take at least half a page to explain to the entire satisfaction of thoughtful readers of both sexes.