“‘Not in the least, mamma, dear,’ answered Miss Pert.  ’I like to work, and there is nothing interesting going on outside.’

“I tossed and sighed, and she was by me in a second.

“‘Darling mamma! my poor, sweet little mother!’ in her reed-like chirp; ‘can I do nothing to make you feel better?’ putting her hands upon my head and stroking my face until my flesh crawled.

“‘Yes,’ said I, out of all patience.  ’Take yourself off, and don’t let me see you again until to-morrow morning!  You kill me with your teasing.’

“And would you believe it? she just put up her sewing in the basket and went directly out, without a tear or a murmur, and when her father came home he could not prevail upon her, by commands or persuasions, to accompany him further than the door of my chamber.  So he, who won’t admit that she can do anything wrong, instead of whipping her for her obstinacy, as he ought to have done, guessed she ‘had some reason’ for her disobedience which she did not like to tell, and interrogated poor, persecuted me.  When he had heard my version of the manner in which we had spent the afternoon, he only said, ’I should have foreseen this.  But the child—­she is only a child, Rosa!—­did her best!’ and he looked so mournful that I, knowing he blamed me for his bantling’s freak of temper, told him plainly that he cared a thousand times more for this diminutive bundle of hypocrisy than he ever did for me, and that his absurd favoritism was fast begetting in me a positive dislike for her.  I couldn’t endure the sight of the sulky little mischief-maker for a week after her complaint of barbarity had brought the look into his face I knew so well.”

“O Rosa, she is your own flesh and blood! and, as her father said, a mere baby yet!  You said, too, that she refused to assign any cause to him for her singular conduct.”

“She might better have made open outcry than have left upon his mind the impression that I had banished her cruelly and unnecessarily.  But I despair of giving you an idea of how provoking she can be.  She is a Chilton, through and through, in feature, manner, and disposition—­one of those ‘goody’ children, you know! a class of animals that are simply intolerable to me.  She is too precocious and unbaby-like to be in the least interesting.  You should have seen my little Violet to understand what a constant disappointment Florence is.  She was myself in miniature, and moreover the most witching, prankish, peppery elf that was ever made.  The best trait in Florence’s character was her love for her baby-sister.  She gave up everything to her while she was alive, and they told me that she would not eat, and scarcely slept, for days after her death.  Her father will have it that she is singularly sensitive, and has marvellous depths of feeling; but if this be so, it is queer I never found it out.  Nobody could help adoring Violet—­my aweet, lost, beautiful angel!”