"I understand what you mean, but it is not so easy to see how I am to go to
work and be good all the time, like cousin Jeannette. I'm not like her,
mother, and I never can be like her, I know."

"True, you will always be very unlike your cousin. But I don't know of any
thing to hinder your being as good and amiable as she is, for all that."

"Oh, mother! I'd give every thing in the world, if I only knew how!"

"I think you can learn, my child, with much less expense; though, to be
sure, you will have to give up some things that perhaps you will find it
hard to part with. You will be obliged to give up some of your bad habits."

"That would be easy enough."

"Not so easy as you think, it may be. It is a good deal easier to let a bad
habit come in, than it is to turn one out. But 'where there's a will,
there's a way,' you know."

"Well, mother, what shall I do? I should like to begin pretty soon, for
scarcely any body loves me now,"

"Before you learn much, it might be well to unlearn a little. When any
thing goes wrong, as you say, you must, at least, not make it go worse. You
must not make every body around you unhappy, if you do feel a little cross
and peevish."

"Oh, mother, I can't speak pleasantly when I don't feel so."