Newcome, with her usual virtue, gave him to
understand that the occupation of an English matron, who, besides her
multifarious family duties, had her own intellectual culture to mind,
would not allow her to pass the mornings in idle gossips: and of course
took great credit to herself for having so rebuked him. "I am not above
instruction of any age," says she, thanking Heaven (or complimenting it,
rather, for having created a being so virtuous and humble-minded). "When
Professor Schroff comes, I sit with my children, and take lessons in
German,--and I say my verbs with Maria and Tommy in the same class!" Yes,
with curtsies and fine speeches she actually bowed her brother out of
doors; and the honest gentleman meekly left her, though with
bewilderment, as he thought of the different hospitality to which he had
been accustomed in the East, where no friend's house was ever closed to
him, where no neighbour was so busy but he had time to make Thomas
Newcome welcome.
When Hobson Newcome's boys came home for the holidays, their kind uncle
was for treating them to the sights of the town, but here Virtue again
interposed and laid its interdict upon pleasure.
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