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flood. My thoughts thus danced along to the music, when they were brought to a dead stop by its cessation; and it was time, you will think.... But, permit me to remind you that my name is not _acquired_, but _inherited_. At your service, MOLLY O'MOLLY. NO. II. I detest that man who bides his time to repay a wrong or fancied wrong, who keeps alive in his hardened nature the vile thing hatred, and would for centuries, did he live thus long,--as the toad is kept alive in the solid rock. Hugh Miller says he is 'disposed to regard the poison bag of the serpent as a mark of degradation;' this venomous spite is certainly a mark of degradation, and it is only creeping, crawling souls that have it, but the creeping and crawling are a part of the curse. Yet I have a respect for honest indignation, righteous anger, such as the O'Mollys have ever been capable of. And all the O'Molly blood in my veins has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which some men have spoken of woman. 'Weak woman,--inconstant woman;' they have made the wind a type of her fickleness. In this they are right; for it has been proved that the seasons in their return, day and night, are not more sure than the wind. Such fickleness as this is preferable to _man's_ greatest constancy. Woman weak! she's gentle as the summer breeze, I grant;--but, like this same breeze, when she's roused--then beware! You have doubtless heard of that gale that forced back the Gulf Stream, and piled it up thirty feet at its source. Take care how you sour woman's nature,--remember that, once soured, all the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process? Grumbling--everlasting fault-finding--at breakfast, dinner, and supper, the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the meek woman he afterwards calls wife,--not a word can he say, though he morning after morning, in his breakfast, recognizes, through its various disguises, yesterday's dinner. By the way, this is after Dame Nature's plan; she uses the greatest economy in feeding her immense family of boarders; never wastes a refuse scrap, or even a drop of water. If one of these boarders dies, it is true he is not, li
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