“Beware of teaching them _blind_ obedience, Maria,” said Letitia, when once more seated in the carriage; “your girls equally with your son. Obedience, by all means; but a rational, discriminating, and therefore loving and hearty obedience to the public laws as well as to those of your own house. Your little ones will learn hereafter that your object in forbidding them to set foot on the hearth-rug in your absence, is to guard them from being burned. Let them learn at the same future time the purposes of the laws under which they live, that they may be ready to do their part in that renovation of the system which is required as years roll on. If you would not have your children retain a superstitious dread of a hearth-rug through life, neither would you have them cling to laws enacted in the infancy of the state, and inappropriate to its present condition.” “Implicit obedience is at least safe,” observed Maria. “Safe to a certain point, but no farther. If you continue the law of the hearth-rug for twenty years to come, your obedient children will never be burned by crossing it; but do you suppose they will not by that time have discovered other means of getting the warmth they wish for? They will creep under it; they will creep round it; they will jump over it. So is it, and so should it be with absurd, antiquated laws.” “Who is to judge which are absurd and which sound?” “The bulk of the subjects of them. A sound law can never be evaded by more than a solitary simpleton here and there, against whom society will rise up; since it is the paramount interest of society to keep good laws in effectual operation. When the time comes for the bulk of society to approve and enforce the usury laws, you and I will pay no more visits to Mr. Simeon. Till then, or till their repeal, let there be opposition to the spirit and grudging obedience to the letter, unless we are prepared for the consequences of a breach of both.” “Not I, nor, I hope, anybody belonging to me,” replied Maria. “O, Letitia, what o’clock is it? I cannot trust my watch.” “Far enough from two o’clock, my dear. So you will not be amused, even with talk about the usury laws. Well? I will keep all drowsy subjects to lull you to sleep with to-night, when all will be settled;—all redeemed, I trust; and when you will own at last that watching has nearly worn you out.”