they should be old enough and accomplished enough to become pages to a
great lord, or companions to some great lady, he would have sent them
to school, and the boys--the younger ones, at least--would have been
prepared for some occupation which would support them, while the girls
would have been taught to play on the piano and to work slippers.

In these days, instead of that old helmet on the floor, you would have
seen a high-top hat--that is, if the old gentleman should continue to
be as careless as the picture shows him; instead of a cross-bow on the
floor, and another leaning against the chair, you would have seen a
double-barrelled gun and a powder-horn; and instead of the picturesque
and becoming clothes in which you see Sir Marmaduke, he would have
worn some sort of a tight-fitting and ugly suit, such as old gentlemen
now-a-days generally wear.

There were a great many advantages in the old style of living, and
also a very great many disadvantages. On the whole, we should be very
thankful indeed that we were born in this century, and not in the good
old times of yore.

A little boy once made a very wise remark on this subject. He said: "I
wish I could have seen George Washington and Israel Putnam; but I'm
glad I didn't, for if I'd been alive then, I should have been dead
now."

There is enough in that boy's remark for a whole composition, if any
one chose to write it.