“Yes,” Nurse answered, “you may well be surprised and shocked, Amy, for it would be long before you would act in such a manner. You have always had a becoming respect for your elders, and shown a quietness and discretion above your years. And now, Miss Leila, this should be an awful warning to you; you see to what the love of play may lead, and must understand now why I always tried to root the evil out of your heart, and to settle you down to your work with serious reflection; and you are far from what I could wish yet, you still give me many an anxious thought. There it was but the other day, when I gave you that collar to trim; any well brought up young lady would have taken an interest in having such a beautiful edging to sew on, and would have arranged it properly in quarters, and pinned it before her hand, but there were you rumpling it on as if it were a rag, putting all the fulness in the middle, not a thought of how you were to turn the corners. Did it ever strike you that _that_ collar never could have been ironed? Oh, Miss Leila, try to think more deeply of those things, before it is too late.” “But, Nurse,” Leila said, in a deprecating tone of voice, “though I am not very fond of work, I am sure I never would have tied you up in a flannel _bag_!” Nurse drew up her little fat round figure in a dignified manner. “Look at me, Miss Leila, am I the sort of person to be tied up in a flannel bag?” Leila thought it would be difficult. Nurse continued,--“No, Miss Leila, I have always brought you up in proper habits of respect; but it was not of flannel bags we were talking, but of that want of serious reflection when you take a piece of work into your hands; there, about that _very_ collar, you had been quiet for a time, and I thought had settled down to it, when you suddenly broke out with--‘Oh, Nurse! look at those clouds; did you ever see any thing so beautiful? they are like magnificent mountains, bathed in golden light.’ What sort of nonsense was that, Miss Leila, to be seeing mountains in the clouds, instead of the work that was before you; and do you remember when I made you turn your back to the window, and sit with your face opposite to me, how you kept tapping your foot on the ground with anger and indignation? but I am not wishing to vex you at this moment, for I am sure the awful lesson of this day will make a proper impression; so sit down and let me see how quickly and how nicely you will stitch round this pocket that I have cut out for you, for you know I have no opinion of the new fangled way of bringing up young ladies not to wear pockets, and with every thing belonging to them to be hunted for all over the house.” “Yes, Nurse,” Leila answered, “give it me, and you shall see how nicely I will do it; but when I told Lydia Mildmay that to wear a pocket was highly respectable, she laughed at me very much.”