"How could I?" mimicked Daisy, looking up at her sister as she trotted along by her side.
"Well," said Nellie, "I think you, Carrie, could be more obedient to mamma."
"I'm sure I do mind mamma," said Carrie, indignantly. "I never do any thing she tells me not to."
"No," said Nellie, "you never do the things she tells you you must not do, and you generally do what she says you must do; but—but—perhaps you won't like me to say it, Carrie, but sometimes you do things which mamma has not forbidden, but which we both feel pretty sure she would not like; and then, when she knows it, it makes trouble for her."
Carrie pouted a little, she could not deny Nellie's accusation, but still she was not pleased.
"Pooh!" she said, "I don't mean that. I mean I want to do some very great help for her, something it would be nice to say I had done."
"You're not large enough for that yet," said Nellie, "and I don't believe you could help her more than by being good all the time."
"Then why don't you be good all the time?" said Carrie, not at all pleased. "I shouldn't think it was a great help to mamma to let Daisy fall out of bed."