Eating crusts! What a discovery!—­I immediately felt ready to eat all the crusts in our house and every one else’s.  I bribed the children to deliver up all their crusts to me, and commenced eating them with a voracity that excited the surprise of all the nursery inmates.  But already, in perspective, I beheld my head adorned with long, glossy curls, and I persevered, despite the laughter I excited.  I devoured crusts by the wholesale, but alas! no waving locks rewarded my patient toil; and at length I had the pleasure of hearing that the crust business was a fable, invented by Ellen’s nurse to induce that young lady to finish her odds and ends of bread, which she was very much disposed to scatter about the nursery.  It was cruel, after being elevated to such a pinnacle of happiness, to find my hopes thus rudely dashed to the ground; and my hair seemed straighter than ever, from contrast with what I had expected it to be.  Ellen was prevented from wasting her crusts, and so far it was well; but the nurse lost by her falsehood whatever respect I may have had for her—­a loss which she perhaps did not regard as such, or indeed trouble herself at all about—­but even a child’s good opinion is something.

I was very much inclined to be fleshy—­too much so, I thought, for beauty of figure; and this was another great annoyance.  People in speaking of us, always used to say:  “What fine large children!” until I hated the very sound of it, and wished most earnestly for Ellen’s light, fairy-like figure.  I once resolved to starve myself into growing thin; and, to Mammy’s great surprise, refused to taste the dinner she handed me, and resolutely persisted in going to bed without my supper.  Mammy, good old soul! watched me narrowly, not having been let into the secret of my laudable resolve; and while she supposed that I had fallen into a restless slumber, I was in reality tossing about on my trundle bed, suffering the tantalizing pains of hunger.  I remonstrated with myself in vain; heard all the pros and cons on both sides in this perplexing case of vanity vs. appetite, and finally resolved to satisfy my hunger, cost what it would.

But how to do this was the next question.  Enticing slices of bread and butter kept dancing before my eyes; and at length, when I heard the snore which announced Mammy’s departure to the land of dreams, I rose as quietly as possible, and descended on a foraging expedition to the pantry.  How very nice everything did look!  I stood for a moment feasting my eyes with the sight, but oh, ill-timed delay!  I had not tasted a single morsel, when a low whisper fell upon my ear, and on turning, I beheld Mammy gazing on me rather fearfully, while at her elbow stood Jane in night-gown and cap, who was violently rubbing her eyes in order to clear away the fancied mist, and thus convince herself that it was really the veritable me who was about to perform such an unheroine-like part.