"Emma," replied her Mother, "do you know that I ought to punish you, because you do not mind?"
"I am coming directly," cried Emma, dropping her scissors and her paper mouse, and running up to her Mother.
Her Mother took her up on her lap, and said, "My little girl, this will never do. You must learn to come at once when you are called; you must obey quickly. If you continue in this very naughty habit of not minding until you are told to do a thing two or three times, you will grow up a very disagreeable girl, and nobody will love you."
Emma looked up mournfully into her Mother's face, and said, "Mother, I will try to do better."
She was a good-tempered child, and was seldom cross or sullen; but she had this one bad habit, and it was a very bad habit indeed—she waited to be told twice, and sometimes oftener, and many times she made her kind Mother very unhappy.
For a few days after this Emma remembered what her Mother had said to her, and always came the first time she was called. She came pleasantly, for it is very important to mind pleasantly, and did everything she was told to do immediately; and her Mother loved her dearly, and hoped she was quite cured of her naughty ways.
But I am very sorry to have to say that a time came when Emma entirely forgot her promise. You shall hear how it happened.
One morning Emma's Mother said to her, "Emma, it is time for you to get up, and put on your stockings and shoes."
Emma did not move. She lay with her eyes wide open, watching a fly on the wall, that was scrubbing his thin wings with his hind legs.
"Did you hear me, Emma? Put on your stockings and shoes!"