She might as well have stayed at home and
used Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in
the stables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved the
chance, also, of making all the children ill instead of well (as
hundreds are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained
lodging, and then wondering how they caught scarlatina and
diphtheria: but people won't be wise enough to understand that
till they are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late;
besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud.
But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies
should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so
hunt and howk after them (besides raising the price of lodgings),
and keep them in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may
see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobody
ever heard that they starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirt
and neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts. So
nobody must know where My Lady went. Letting water-babies die is
as bad as taking singing birds' eggs; for, though there are
thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world, yet there is
not one too many.
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