Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/200

in general they are so spoiled. It is a pity you cannot put your sister in the way of managing them. They are as fine healthy children as ever were seen, poor little dears, without partiality; but Mrs. Charles knows no more how they should be treated—bless me! how troublesome they are sometimes. I assure you, Miss Anne, it prevents my wishing to see them at our house as often as I otherwise should. I believe Mrs. Charles is not quite pleased with my not inviting them oftener; but you know it is very bad to have children with one that one is obliged to be checking every moment: "don't do this," or "don't do that"; or that one can only keep in tolerable order by more cake than is good for them.' She had this communication, moreover, from Mary: 'Mrs. Musgrove thinks all her servants so steady that it would be high treason to call it in question; but I am sure, without exaggeration, that her upper house-maid and laundry-maid, instead of being in their business, are gadding about the village all day long. I meet them wherever I go; and, I declare, I never go twice into my nursery without seeing something of them. If Jemima were not the trustiest steadiest creature in the world, it would be enough to spoil her; for she tells me they are always tempting her to take a walk with them." And on Mrs. Musgrove's side it was, "I make a rule of never interfering in any of my daughter-in-law's concerns, for I know it would not do; but I shall tell you, Miss Anne, because you may be able to set things to rights, that I have no very good opinion of Mrs. Charles's nursery-maid. I hear strange stories of her; she is always upon the gad; and, from my own knowledge, she is such a fine-dressing lady that she is enough to ruin any servants she