ought to think twice before doing a good action."

"David!" said his wife warningly.

"Oh, let him go on!" cried Miss Vane, with a laugh. "I'm proof
against his monstrous doctrines. Go on, Mr. Sewell."

"What I mean is this." Sewell pushed himself back in his chair, and
then stopped.

"Is what?" prompted both the ladies.

"Why, suppose the boy really had some literary faculty, should I
have had any right to encourage it? He was very well where he was.
He fed the cows and milked them, and carried the milk to the
crossroads, where the dealer collected it and took it to the train.
That was his life, with the incidental facts of cutting the hay and
fodder, and bedding the cattle; and his experience never went beyond
it. I doubt if his fancy ever did, except in some wild, mistaken
excursion. Why shouldn't he have been left to this condition? He
ate, he slept, he fulfilled his use. Which of us does more?"

"How would you like to have been in his place?" asked his wife.

"I couldn't _put_ myself in his place; and therefore I oughtn't
to have done anything to take him out of it," answered Sewell.

"It seems to me that's very un-American," said Miss Vane. "I thought
we had prospered up to the present point by taking people out of
their places."