"You slapped your little sister."
"But she slapped me, too!" I pleaded.
"Not until after you slapped her. And you are six years old."
That was one of the unkindest things about Lily-Ann; she was always trying to make me live up to my station. And it was so hard to be good, and hardest of all to be good enough for my great age. That night, however, I made a compact with her.
"Dear Lily-Ann," I said, piteously, "if I go right to sleep by myself, so you can get your supper, will you chase away the Things and tell the Bear that there is no bad child in this house?"
I was not prone to criticise my elders and betters; but somehow I had remarked that Lily-Ann was fond of her supper.
She went away without much urging, and I lay there miserably in the dark. It seemed to me that there was a stir all through the quiet room, and out in the hall the garret door creaked in a new manner. The dark was so much blacker than it had ever been before, and even when I went down head and all under the covers I could hear the Things pattering about the floor, and the Bear rattling at the knob. Many a night after that I huddled myself up into a heap, afraid to sleep lest my hands should unclasp and slip out of bed, afraid to move lest the Bear on the prowl for bad children should pounce on me and eat me up, sins and all. I used to pretend to sleep very loudly and heavily that he might think me a good child. Still, I felt that it must be hard to deceive a Bear, and that sooner or later he would make an end of me. As for the Things, I never had any hope of getting the better of them. All through the long nights they slipped and slid about, or stood waiting at the edge of the bed to shake hands, with a friendliness that was truly awful.
Even in my greatest fear, however, I never betrayed Lily-Ann. I was too much in her power to dare to tell tales about her. I used to marvel when the family commented on her faithfulness, or devised schemes for improving the home from which she had come. Many large bundles went out of our house, and I often heard my mother speaking in a sympathetic fashion of the little girl whose childhood was passed in the service of others.
"Poor Lily-Ann, she's never had any childhood of her own," she would say, regretfully.
Out in the kitchen, too, I had heard our Norah exchanging confidences on the subject with her cousin, who came in sometimes, when there was company, to help with the work.