But this cannot be. Amber was not brought up according to the prescribed maxims of Mesdames Appleton and Hamilton; and as effects cannot be satisfactorily comprehended without the causes are made known, so it becomes necessary, not only that the chapter should be written, but, what is still more vexatious, absolutely necessary that it should be read.
Before I enter upon this most unpleasant theme--unpleasant to all parties, for no one likes to teach, and no one likes to learn,--I cannot help remarking how excessively _au fait_ we find most elderly maiden ladies upon every point connected with the rearing of our unprofitable species. They are erudite upon every point _ab ovo_, and it would appear that their peculiar knowledge of the _theory_ can but arise from their attentions having never been diverted by the _practice_.
Let it be the teeming mother or the new-born babe--the teething infant or the fractious child--the dirty, pinafored urchin or sampler-spoiling girl--school-boy lout or sapling Miss--voice-broken, self-admiring hobby-de-hoy, or expanding conscious and blushing maiden, the whole arcana of nature and of art has been revealed to them alone.
Let it be the scarlet fever or a fit of passion, the measles or a shocking fib--whooping-cough or apple-stealing--learning too slow or eating too fast--slapping a sister or clawing a brother--let the disease be bodily or mental, they alone possess the panacea; and blooming matrons, spreading out in their pride, like the anxious clucking hen, over their numerous encircling offspring, who have borne them with a mother's throes, watched over them with a mother's anxious mind, and reared them with a mother's ardent love, are considered to be wholly incompetent, in the opinion of these dessicated and barren branches of Nature's stupendous, ever-bearing tree.
Mrs Beazely, who had lost her husband soon after marriage, was not fond of children, as they interfered with her habits of extreme neatness. As far as Amber's education was concerned, all we can say is, that if the old housekeeper did no good, she certainly did her no harm. As Amber increased in years and intelligence, so did her thirst for knowledge on topics upon which Mrs Beazely was unable to give her any correct information. Under these circumstances, when applied to, Mrs Beazely, who was too conscientious to mislead the child, was accustomed to place her hand upon her back, and complain of the rheumatiz--"Such a stitch, my dear love, can't talk now--ask your pa when he comes home."