"She is a _good_ child!" said Mrs. Chauncey.
"Yes, Mamma, and that is what I wanted to say. I do not think
Ellen is so polite because she is so much with Alice and John,
but because she is so sweet and good. I don't think she could
_help_ being polite."
"It is not that," said Mrs. Gillespie; "mere sweetness and
goodness would never give so much elegance of manner. As far
as I have seen, Ellen Montgomery is a _perfectly_ well-behaved
child."
"That she is," said Mrs. Chauncey; "but neither would any
cultivation or example be sufficient for it without Ellen's
thorough good principle and great sweetness of temper."
"That's exactly what _I_ think, Mamma," said Ellen Chauncey.
Ellen's sweetness of temper was not entirely born with her; it
was one of the blessed fruits of religion and discipline.
Discipline had not done with it yet. When the winter came on,
and the house-work grew less, and with renewed vigour she was
bending herself to improvement in all sorts of ways, it
unluckily came into Miss Fortune's head, that some of Ellen's
spare time might be turned to account in a new line. With this
lady, to propose and to do were two things always very near
together. The very next day Ellen was summoned to help her
down-stairs with the big spinning-wheel. Most unsuspiciously,
and with her accustomed pleasantness, Ellen did it. But when
she was sent up again for the rolls of wool, and Miss Fortune,
after setting up the wheel, put one of them into her hand and
instructed her how to draw out and twist the thread of yarn,
she saw all that was coming.
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