She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor Penelope’s grasses.
“What horror is this?” she said. “Take it away at once, and throw those weeds out.”
At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.
“Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room, did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?”
“Yes, did she?” came from Verena’s lips; and Pauline’s eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.
Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.
“I thought I’d be the goodest of you all,” she said. “I maded up my mind that I just would; but I doesn’t like Aunt Sophia, and I think I’ll be the naughtiest.”
“No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can’t possibly stay long, for we can’t afford it,” said Verena.
“She’ll stay,” answered Penelope. “She have made up her mind. She throwed away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she said she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did so want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I’d get sugar-plums and perhaps pennies. And I thought she’d let me tell her when you was all bad. Oh, I hate her now! I don’t think I care to be took out of the nursery if she’s about.”
“You certainly are a caution, Penny,” said Verena. “It is well that you have told us what your motives are. Believe me, there are worse places than that despised nursery of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort of dinner or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her head aches, and if——”