ad it weeks quite five,
Yet, 'tis as true as I'm alive,
She's soon to have another.

ROBERT

O mother, hear my sister Jane,
How foolishly she does complain,
And teaze herself for nought.
But 'tis the way of all her sex,
Thus foolishly themselves to vex.
Envy's a female fault.

JANE

O brother Robert, say not so;
It is not very long ago,
Ah! brother, you've forgot,
When speaking of a boy you knew,
Remember how you said that you
Envied his happy lot.

ROBERT

Let's see, what were the words I spoke?
Why, may be I was half in joke--
May be I just might say--
Besides that was not half so bad;
For Jane, I only said he had
More time than I to play.

JANE

O _may be, may be_, very well:
And may be, brother, I don't tell
Tales to mamma like you.

MOTHER

O cease your wrangling, cease, my dears;
You would not wake a mother's fears
Thus, if you better knew.

REPENTANCE AND RECONCILIATION

JANE

Mamma is displeased and looks very grave,
And I own, brother, I was to blame
Just now when I told her I wanted to have,
Like Miss Lydia, a very fine _name_.
'Twas foolish, for, Robert, Jane sounds very well,
When mamma says, "I love my good Jane."
I've been lately so naughty, I hardly can tell
If she ever will say so again.

ROBERT

We are each of us foolish, and each of us young,
And often in fault and to blame.
Jane, yesterday I was too free with my tongue,
I acknowledge it now to my shame.
For a speech in my good mother's hearing I made,
Which reflected upon her whole sex;
And now like you, Jenny, I am much afraid
That this might my dear mother vex.

JANE

But yet, brother Robert, 'twas not quite so bad
As that naughty reflection of mine,
When I grumbled because Liddy Bellenger had
Dolls and dresses expensive and fine.
For then 'twas of her, her own self, I complain'd;
Since mamma does provide all I have.

MOTHER

Your repentance, my children, I see is unfeign'd,
You are now my good Robert, and now my good Jane;
And if you never will be naughty again,
Your fond mother will never look grave.

NEATNESS IN APPAREL

In your garb and outward clothing
A reserved plainness use;
By their neatness more distinguish'd
Than the brightness of their hues.

All the colours in the rainbow
Serve to spread the peacock's train;
Half the lustre of his feathers
Would turn twenty coxcombs