not decent people," said the child, pettishly; "they are very
genteel people, and dress quite beautifully, and have a country-house,
where I have played many a time; and they have a fine instrument, and more
books than you have, and I love them dearly."

"But who are they, my dear?"

"Why, to be sure, they are their father's daughters, Mr. Turner, the great
baker; every body knows Mr. Turner's shop, I suppose."

The lady was distressed. She began a speech, endeavouring to prove, that
although gratitude was very good in its place, yet, when it was advisable
to forget its object, then it was no longer good, but foolish, and
improper, and unfashionable; but she checked herself in the midst of this
exordium, by recollecting that the intellects of her pupil were unequal to
all investigation, but that her inclination, youth, and temper could be
more easily wrought upon. She began to load her with finery, take her to
the play, though she fell asleep in the second act, speak of her in her own
hearing as a wit and a beauty, shake her head knowingly whenever her city
connections were alluded to; and therefore it was no wonder that in a short
time the child forgot the friends she had loved, grew ashamed of the
parents she had honoured, learnt to prattle on subjects of which she knew
nothing, and to affect all the premature airs of a woman, with more than
the usual ignorance of a child, as children are now usually instructed.

Perhaps a womanized child of this description is the most disagreeable
thing in existence, and is rendered only the more so, from any talent or
natural acuteness it may happen to possess, since that never fails to give
a spice of sin to what would otherwise be mere folly. The thinking mind
shudders at the airs of infantine coquetry and malicious sneers, which are
merely ludicrous to another stander-by; but how any person can be either
indifferent to such a waste and perversion of human nature, or behold it
with pleasure, is inconceivable. Mrs. Thornton was, however, so far the
dupe of her own folly, that she conceived Miss Holdup the finest child she
had ever known, and a decisive proof of her own talents for education. It
was true, she had lavished upon her all her stores of information, in the
same way that, agreeably to her own notions of dress and pleasure, she had
expended upon her sums which her husband thought prodigious; and the result
of both had been to make her what might be truly called a grand