“It was funny enough to hear you scold, and that was principally what I was laughing at,” said auntie.
“I dare say,” answered mamma. “By the time I reached the top of the hill I was in a great rage. I used to get into rages very easily, then.”
“You, mamma?” Eunice looked as if she could scarcely believe it.
“Yes, my dear, I wasn’t always a good little girl in those days. ‘I’m going to tell mother what a naughty girl you are, Jean,’ I half-sobbed.
“‘What a naughty girl I am? You’d better tell her what a naughty girl you are yourself, rolling down hill, and getting your dress all dirty,’ Jean said, getting angry in her turn. Then she went on with her play-house and wouldn’t speak to me any more. I ran crying towards the house. Before I got there, I had quite made up my mind that it was certainly all Jean’s fault, somehow, and that if it hadn’t been for what she said, I shouldn’t have rolled down the hill in the first place, and so I shouldn’t have spoiled my new dress.
“I burst into the sitting-room, where your grandmother sat sewing. You know what a lovely old lady grandma is now, children, with her white puffs and dark eyes, and she was just as lovely then, when her hair was black. She looked up, as I rushed in panting.
“‘Gently, gently, little daughter,’ she said. ‘What has happened to your new frock, my dear? oh, what a sight you are!’
“Now I knew very well that grandma wouldn’t have punished me for spoiling the dress, for after all, it was an accident. I had often rolled down that hill before, and no harm had come of it. So I don’t, in the least, know what made me say it, excepting that I was so angry, but almost before I realized it, I was saying very fast, ‘mother, Jean was angry because I had on my new frock and she hadn’t, and so, when I was just standing on a box, suddenly she came behind me, and pushed me over as hard as she could, and I rolled down the hill, and rolled right through some water, and so I’ve spoiled my new dress.’ I was so excited that it never occurred to mother that I was not speaking the truth. I was so little—only five years old,—and I had never told her a lie before.
“‘Why! why!’ she exclaimed, laying down her work, and getting up. ‘I am surprised that Jean should do that. Come upstairs with me, and I will change your dress.’ That was all she said to me then, for mother never scolded at one child for what another one did, as I have heard some mothers do, and of course she thought this was Jean’s fault. So she took me upstairs to the big nursery and took off my dress.
“‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘that your pretty little dress is spoiled. Now, it will have to go straight to the wash, and it won’t look so pretty again.’