"In some other houses," said Mrs. Stanley, "where we visit, besides that of poor Mr. Reynolds, the children seem to have all the accommodation; and I have observed that the convenience and comfort of the father is but a subordinate consideration. The respectful terms of address are nearly banished from the vocabulary of children, and the somewhat too orderly manner which once prevailed is superseded by an incivility, a roughness, a want of attention, which is surely not better than the harmless formality which it has driven out." Just as she had said this, we stopped at Mr. Reynolds's gate; neither he nor his lady were at home. Mr. Stanley, who wished to show us a fine reach of the river from the drawing-room window, desired the servant to show us into it. There we beheld a curious illustration of what we had heard. In the ample bow-window lay a confused heap of the glittering spoils of the most expensive toys. Before the rich silk chairs knelt two of the children, in the act of demolishing their fine painted playthings; "others apart sat on _the floor_ retired," and more deliberately employed in picking to pieces their little gaudy works of art. A pretty girl, who had a beautiful wax doll on her lap, almost as big as herself, was pulling out its eyes, that she might see how they were put in. Another, weary of this costly baby, was making a little doll of rags. A turbulent-looking boy was tearing out the parchment from a handsome new drum, that he might see, as he told us, where the noise came from. These I forgave: they had meaning in their mischief. Another, having kicked about a whole little gilt library, was sitting, with the decorated pages torn asunder at his feet, reading a little dirty penny book, which the kitchen-maid had bought of a hawker at the door. The Persian carpet was strewed with the broken limbs of a painted horse, almost as large as a poney, while the discontented little master was riding astride on a long rough stick. A bigger boy, after having broken the panels of a fine gilt coach, we saw afterwards in the court-yard nailing together a few dirty bits of ragged elm boards, to make himself a wheel-barrow. "Not only the disciple of the fastidious Jean Jacques," exclaimed I, "but the sound votary of truth and reason, must triumph at such an instance of the satiety of riches, and the weariness of ignorance and idleness. One such practical instance of the insufficiency of affluence to _bestow_ the pleasures which industry must _buy_; one such actual exemplification of the folly of supposing that injudicious profusion and mistaken fondness can supply that pleasure which must be worked out before it can be enjoyed, is worth a whole folio of argument or exhortation. The ill-bred little flock paid no attention to us, and only returned a rude 'n--o' or 'ye--s' to our questions."