Bea sucked her bruised thumb, and thought more heartily than ever, that they ought to be ashamed; but a little witch of impatience and petulance lurks in the gentlest of feminine hearts, and though Bea had resolved to hush talking, and be patient, the little meddling temper was wide awake, much aggravated at the gloomy weather, and bound to make mischief if possible. Ernestine turned away from the glass in a moment, and strolled over to the lounge.
"I don't see," she exclaimed, "why everything should be denied us. I'd like to live for awhile just as I want to."
No one answered, for just then Kittie threw down her slate, and burst into impatient tears.
"What's the use! I can't understand such fractions, and I never will; I'd like to smash that slate, and burn this old book!"
"Doesn't Miss Howard show you?"
"O yes, she shows and shows, and talks and explains, 'till my head spins like a top; but I can't understand, and after a while she says, in such a surprised way, as if she thought I was the biggest dummy in the world—'Why, Kittie, don't you see it yet?' and I don't see it any more than ink in the dark, but I'm ashamed, so I pretend that I do, and that's the way it always is," and Kittie cried despairingly.
"How the cheerfulness increases," laughed Ernestine, jumping up. "I'm going down stairs, and I sha'n't come up again until I can say something that will please you all. By-by," and away she went, nodding brightly.
The morning wore slowly away. Jean, with a pain in her back, lay in Bea's arms until she fell asleep again; then after laying her down, Beatrice went back to her sewing, made patient and penitent by contact with that frail, peaceful little sister, and, after viewing her unmanageable puff determinedly for a few minutes, saw her mistake, and immediately went to work and finished it with no trouble. Kat, after much grumbling, finally brought her tooth to comparative submission, and went to sleep, while Kittie fled from the field of fractions, and spent her morning in the swing, which hung in the shed.
Just before dinner, the door-bell rang, and in a minute Ernestine came flying up stairs.
"There," she cried, waving a tinted paper. "I've something to please you with. Just listen:—'Mrs. Richards would be pleased to see Miss Dering, Miss Ernestine and Miss Olive for tea next Wednesday Eve!' I expect they'll dance. Won't it be fun?"