Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/128

Who ate in peace and answered not
Until one day they said,—
" How can you eat this garbage vile
Against all nature's laws?
How can you eat your nails in points,
Until they look like claws?"
Then patiently Amanda said,
"My loves, just wait a while,
The time will come you will not think
The nails or victuals vile."
A month has passed, and now we see
That prophecy fulfilled;
The ardor of those carping maids
Is most completely chilled.
Matilda was the first to fall,
Lured by the dark gossoon,
In awful dishes one by one,
She dipped her timid spoon.
She promised for one little week
To let her nails grow long,
But added in a saving clause
She thought it very wrong.
Thus did she take the fatal plunge,
Did compromise with sin:
Then all was lost, from that day forth
French ways were sure to win.
Lavinia followed in her train,
And ran the self-same road,
Ate sweet-bread first, then chopped-up brains,
Eels, mushrooms, pickled toad.
She cries, "How flat the home cuisine,
After this luscious food!
Puddings and brutal joints of meat,
That once we fancied good!"