yet they make a house look very dirty; but I seldom have any in mine, for I took care, when I first came to live in it, to destroy the nests, and the old spiders finding there was no security for their young ones here, have forsaken the house; and I am inclined to think the same vigilance in respect to other disagreeable insects would have the same effect."
"Doubtless," said Mrs. Benson; "but pray tell me, do you destroy the webs of garden spiders also?"
"Not unless there are so many as to be disagreeable," replied Mrs. Wilson. "I should not myself like to have the fruits of my industry demolished, nor my little ones taken out of my arms, or from their warm beds, and crushed to death."
"I am of opinion," said Mrs. Benson, "that it would be a good way to accustom one's self, before one kills anything, to change situations with it in imagination, and to suppose how we should feel were we bees, or ants, or birds, or kittens, and so on."
"Indeed, madam," said Mrs. Wilson, "I have often wished that poor dumb creatures had somebody to speak for them; many an innocent life would then be saved, which is now destroyed to no end."
"Well," said Harriet, "I am sure I shall never kill anything without first magnifying it in my mind, and thinking what it would say for itself if able to
