“Now will you stop piercing me with those daggery eyes of yours? I’m going to do right; I’m going to honor and obey my Aunt Priscilla Flint; and though I shall be a martyr in the cause, I sha’n’t mention that, because it would spoil all the goodness of my deed. Of course my duty is to my aunt—my dear aunt who feeds and clothes me, and lends me her roof to keep off the rain; and though she has asked me for the apple of my eye and the apple-core of my heart, I will give them. I will sacrifice them on the altar of duty, even though they are my dear little dog. And now I shall go right straight down and tell my aunt before I change my mind.”
Buoyed up by the elation of her noble resolve, and enveloped in an atmosphere of conscious rectitude, Ladybird gathered up Cloppy and marched down-stairs, with her head erect and her eyes shining.
“Aunty,” she announced, “I am ready to obey you; I’m going to take Cloppy away, and you will never see him again.”
“What’s that, child?” said Miss Priscilla, looking up from an article she was reading, and in which she was deeply absorbed.
“I say,” repeated Ladybird, with dignity, “that since you say Cloppy must go, he is going.”
“That’s a good girl,” said Miss Priscilla, half absent-mindedly, and she returned to her reading.
“I am a good girl,” said Ladybird; “but this is the goodest thing I have ever done, and I wish you appreciated it more.”
But Miss Flint was again deep in her book, and made no reply.
Ladybird left the house, her enthusiasm somewhat impaired, but her purpose strengthened by a certain contrary stubbornness which her aunt’s indifference had aroused.
“I’m a martyr, Cloppy,” she said—“a perfectly awful martyr; but I’m not going to show it, for I detest people who act martyrish outside. Of course you can’t help what you feel inside.