"Mamma!" exclaimed Lily, in a tone in which there was displeasure as well as distress.
"Yes, indeed, my daughter. I cannot allow this to be returned to Miss Ashton with such work upon it. You are but a little girl, and no one would expect to see such neat sewing come from your hands as from those of an older person; but I should be ashamed to have it thought that my Lily cannot do better than this."
"Then I'll never have the petticoat done at all," said Lily, her eyes filling with tears. "It is 'most a week now since Miss Ashton gave them to us, and if I have to take that out it will be all to do from the beginning, and Maggie and Bessie and Belle have ever so much done on theirs, and I shan't have one stitch done on mine."
Mrs. Norris looked grieved at the rebellious tone.
"Whose fault is it, Lily?" she asked sorrowfully.
Lily hesitated for a moment; then, for the first time in her life, temper had the better of her love and reverence for her mother, and she answered passionately,—
"Yours, if you make me pull that out!"
For a moment, surprise held Mrs. Norris silent and motionless. Never before had Lily spoken so to her; never before had she been other than her loving, docile little child, not always strictly obedient it might be, but that was not so much from wilfulness as from that sad habit of putting off,—of not obeying at once.
Then the surprise died out, and left only pain and grief; and while Lily was wondering what mamma would do, could do, after such a dreadful thing as that (for the very utterance of the words had sobered her, and calmed down her temper), Mrs. Norris rose, and laying down the skirt, without one word, without one look at her naughty little child, slowly and sorrowfully left the room.