"If I don't forget myself," said her brother; "it's kinder hard to feel good when everything goes contrary, but I'll try;" and as he spoke, she saw him select a sliver of the broken glass, and, wrapping it in a bit of paper, lay it away in a drawer where he was allowed to keep his few treasures.
"Why, what's that for, Morton?" she asked curiously.
He flushed a little, then said very low,—
"It's to make us remember," and she felt that the whole circumstance must have made a deep impression on the boy.
Not so Molly. She mourned the glass because now she had no better place before which to arrange her curls than in one of the larger pieces left, which, being cracked, gave her such a resemblance to a certain old fisherman with a broken nose, who was her special aversion, that she hated to look at herself, which was, possibly, not a bad thing, for she was in danger of growing vain of her pretty, piquant face these days.
But for a long time Sara went about the humble home with a humbler heart. She felt that she had been a traitor to her Kingly Father, and took the pretty little white cross madame had sent her and pinned it up, face inwards, against the wall.
"I am not worthy to wear it," she said, "until I have done something to atone for my rebellion."
But the winter passed quietly away; and, if no opportunity offered for any great deed of atonement, there were always the little worries of every day to be patiently borne, not the least of which was a sort of nagging spirit which had gone abroad among the old neighbors and friends of the Olmstead family. Possibly they were a trifle jealous of Sara's looks and bearing; it may be those who had predicted failure for her, "because them as keeps so stiddy to books ain't apt to hev much sense at things what caounts," were disappointed that she succeeded so well, or,—let us be charitable,—perhaps they thought the children all needed a little maternal scolding on general principles; anyhow, whatever they thought, there was something unpleasant in the air.
Sara felt it keenly, and drew still farther into her shell of reticence, keeping closely to her studies and home duties, until the neighbors had some excuse for their plaints that "she didn't care for nothin' nor nobody but them pesky books!"
One day Mrs. Updyke came in, sniffing as usual, and casting a hasty glance about the room with her cold, restless eyes.