Then Charles began to cry aloud, and tried to tear nurse's apron; but nurse told him he was a bad boy, and left him.
Now, when Clara sat down to dinner, she said to nurse: 'Where is brother Charles? Why is he not here?'
'Miss Clara, he is a naughty child,' said nurse, 'and chooses to go without his dinner, thinking to vex us; but he hurts no one but himself with his perverse temper.'
'Then,' said Clara, 'I do not like to dine while Charles goes without; so I will try and persuade him to come and eat some pie.'
'Well, Miss Clara,' said nurse, 'you may go, if you please; but I would leave the bad boy to himself.'
When Clara came to Charles, and asked him if he would come and eat his dinner, he poked out his head, and made such an ugly face that she was quite frightened at him, and ran away.
Nurse did not take the trouble of calling him to tea; and, though he was very hungry, he was too sulky to come without being asked; so he lay under the table, and cried aloud till bedtime. But when it grew dark, he was afraid to stay by himself, for bad children are always fearful; so he came upstairs and said in a cross, rude tone of voice: 'Nurse, give me something to eat.'
Nurse said: 'Master Charles, if you had been good, you would have had some chicken and some apple-pie for your dinner, and bread and butter and cake for your tea; but as you were such a bad boy, and would not come to your meals, I shall only give you a piece of dry bread and a cup of milk, and you do not deserve even that.'
Then Charles made one of his very worst faces, and threw the bread on the ground, and spilt the milk.
Nurse told him that there were many poor children in the world who would be glad of the smallest morsel of what he so much despised, and that the time would come when he might want the very worst bit of it; and she bade him kneel down and say his prayers, and ask God to forgive him for having been such a wicked boy all day.