She asked me some questions, while you were gone, which you remember I repeated to you.  She asked me if I did not hate nice new shoes; and why little girls could not put on the dresses they liked best; and if mamma did not look beautiful in that pretty white dress; and said that, if she could only have had her own tea-set, at breakfast, she would have let me have my coffee in one of her cups.  Gradually she grew happier, and began to tell me about her great wax-doll, which had eyes that could shut; which was kept in a trunk because she was too little, mamma said, to play very much with it now; but she guessed mamma would let her have it to-day; did I not think so?  Alas!  I did, and I said so; in fact, I felt sure that it was the very thing you would be certain to do, to sweeten the day, which had begun so sadly for poor little Blue Eyes.

It seemed very long to her before you came back, and she was on the point of asking for her dolly as soon as you appeared; but I whispered to her to wait till you were rested.  After a few minutes I took her up to your room,—­that lovely room with the bay window to the east; there you sat, in your white dress, surrounded with gay worsteds, all looking like a carnival of humming-birds.  “Oh, how beautiful!” I exclaimed, in involuntary admiration; “what are you doing?” You said that you were going to make an affghan, and that the morning was so enchanting you could not bear the thought of touching your mending, but were going to luxuriate in the worsteds.  Some time passed in sorting the colors, and deciding on the contrasts, and I forgot all about the doll.  Not so little Blue Eyes.  I remembered afterward how patiently she stood still, waiting and waiting for a gap between our words, that she need not break the law against interrupting, with her eager—­

“Please, mamma, let me have my wax dolly to play with this morning!  I’ll sit right here on the floor, by you and auntie, and not hurt her one bit.  Oh, please do, mamma!”

You mean always to be a very kind mother, and you spoke as gently and lovingly as it is possible to speak when you replied:—­

“Oh, Pussy, mamma is too busy to get it; she can’t get up now.  You can play with your blocks, and with your other dollies, just as well; that’s a good little girl.”

Probably, if Blue Eyes had gone on imploring, you would have laid your worsteds down, and given her the dolly; for you love her dearly, and never mean to make her unhappy.  But neither you nor I were prepared for what followed.

“You’re a naughty, ugly, hateful mamma!  You never let me do any thing, and I wish you were dead!” with such a burst of screaming and tears that we were both frightened.  You looked, as well you might, heart-broken at such words from your only child.  You took her away; and when you came back, you cried, and said you had whipped her severely, and you did not know what you should do with a child of such a frightful temper.