DORA'S HOUSEKEEPING.
One morning Dora's mother was going away to the next town. She was going to bring grandma for a visit.
The carriage was waiting before she was quite ready. "Now I shall not have time to finish my work," she said. "I will let you sweep the sitting-room, Dora. You did it very nicely last week, and I know you want to help me."
Dora was pouting because she could not go in the carriage with her mother. She thought it was very cruel that she must stay at home when she wanted to go so much. So she did not answer, but sat by the window pouting till the carriage was gone. Then she said to herself, "I don't feel like sweeping, and don't care how I do it. I think 't is too bad that I can't go to ride!"
So she swept the sitting-room in a very heedless manner. She did not get the dust-pan and take up the litter; she only brushed it together and left it under the hearth-rug.
When her mother came home she praised her for making the room so neat. Grandma praised her too. She said, "I like to see children do their work well. Then I feel sure they will do their work well when they are grown up. I am glad if our little girl is going to be a good house-keeper."
O, how Dora felt! She was so ashamed of what she had done. She felt worse because they praised her. She kept thinking of the litter under the hearth-rug. She was afraid some one would move the rug and see it. She was unhappy all the rest of the day. When she went to sleep at night she dreamed that she could not find the dust-pan.
She woke very early the next morning and went down stairs alone. She found the dustpan and brushed up the litter as carefully as she could. It seemed easy enough to do it now. She wished that she had done it at first; then she would have deserved praise from her mother and grandmother.
Dora remembered this for a long time. I am J not sure if she ever forgot it; and it taught her a good lesson. She found that wrongdoing made her very unhappy. When she grew older she learned to be a neat housekeeper.