'Lisbeth gasped for breath. She looked fiercely up at her mother, and down at the floor; she looked within herself, and at the ugly picture of herself which her mother had just showed her. She saw that the picture was like her, that she was "a hindering child." It was a blow she was not prepared for. Had her mother said anything more immediately 'Lisbeth would not have seen so well that the mother's words were true; but she did not say any more immediately. She stood perfectly still with her feet in the two places where the little man's feet had been.
'Lisbeth was very uncomfortable when she heard those words repeated; indeed she was very angry; she looked just as naughty as naughty could be; she looked like a girl who was cross because somebody was doing something very wrong to her. Then she did not look as naughty as naughty could be, she looked disappointed and sorry, and repentant, and humble, and this was because she saw that she was "a hindering child."
At first she believed that she was a helping, comforting child, now she saw that she was not. She saw it as we sometimes see a flash of lightning. 'Lisbeth did not mean to be "a hindering child," but she was one.
"Why am I a hindering child?" inquired 'Lisbeth when she could catch her breath.
"Because you work by your own head instead of by mine," said the mother as she put one foot and then the other forward among the pots and kettles. But 'Lisbeth stood still in the middle of the floor considering what her mother meant, and if what she said was true, and if she was always to work the wrong way instead of the right way, like an engine which will run back instead of forward; and how long she might have stood considering, and how long she might have worn such a troubled face, and how long she might have felt such a lump in her throat, had not her mother come and stood before her, clearing a place for her feet as she came, I shall never pretend to say.
But the mother did come and stand before her, and 'Lisbeth put her two hands in her mother's two hands, and looked up in her mother's face, into her mother's troubled eyes, and her mother knew that whatever else she might do, in days to come, she would never again try to move her before the time. The mother knew this as well as I do, but I know this and more beside.
As I said before, I do not know exactly all that was done that afternoon, before the rooms and the mother and 'Lisbeth all grew quiet, and in place and comfortable, but I know something more important than this; I know that 'Lisbeth, after she had settled other matters began to settle her own mind as to the true meaning of her mother's words about her making use of the wrong head.
She was obliged to think a great deal about it before she was able to settle it in her mind. It took a very great deal of thinking. How could she use her mother's head? How can you and I use our mothers' heads? Of course you know we could do it, how 'Lisbeth could have done it, but Lisbeth had to think hard about it before she knew. When she had made it quite sure in her own mind how it was to be done, she came to another trouble, she was not quite sure that she would like to do it.
She thought a great while as to what she was to do about it; she thought a great while about it while seated on the three-legged stool with her face to the wall, and when she had finished thinking about it she got down from the stool and went and stood before her mother, and her mother looked up to see what she was standing there for, and then 'Lisbeth said:
"I'm going to try most dreadful hard to use your head; I've made up my mind to it."