“Oh, surely not, while I continue the thoughtless, guileless little child mamma has made me,” said she. And the tears rose to her eyes, with an expression of mingled anger and sorrow it was sad to see in one so young.
“Clara!” cried her mother, in a voice of angry meaning; and then, suddenly checking herself, she said, in a lower tone, “let there be none of this.”
“Sir William asked me how old I was, mamma.”
“And you said—”
“I believed twelve. Is it twelve? I ought to know, mamma, something for certain, for I was eleven two years ago, and then I have been ten since that; and when I was your sister, at Brighton, I was thirteen.”
“Do you dare—” But ere she said more, the child had buried her head between her hands, and, by the convulsive motion of her shoulders, showed that she was sobbing bitterly. The mother continued her work, unmoved by this emotion. She took occasion, it is true, when lifting up the ball of worsted which had fallen, to glance furtively towards the child; but, except by this, bestowed no other notice on her.
“Well,” cried the little girl, with a half-wild laugh, as she flung back
her yellow hair, “Anderson says,—
“'On joy comes grief,—on mirth comes sorrow;
We laugh to-day, that we may cry to-morrow.'
And I believe one is just as pleasant as the other,—eh, mamma? You ought to know.”
“This is one of your naughty days, Clara, and I had hoped we had seen the last of them,” said her mother, in a grave but not severe tone.
“The naughty days are much more like to see the last of me,” said the child, half aloud, and with a heavy sigh.