"Is not this your ribbon?" asked Mrs. Grey, taking up one which was hanging on the glass in plain sight.
"I don't care, I could not find it," Etty was beginning, but her aunt stopped her.
"I do not want to hear any more now. Dress yourself and come down-stairs as quickly as you can?"
Esther and Stella Grey were orphan children, who had come to live with their uncle and aunt. Mr. and Mrs. Grey had adopted the children as their own, and treated them kindly in every respect.
Stella was very happy in her new home—happier in fact than she had ever been before. She was a quiet little thing, very gentle and good; but not at all pretty, and not particularly bright.
Etty, on the contrary, was both pretty and intelligent; but she was far from being as pleasant a child to live with as her sister. Esther had always been the favorite with her mother, who was not by any means a sensible woman. Ever since she could remember she had been petted and indulged, and talked about before her face as "a very peculiar nervous child," "a child requiring very delicate management," till she had learned to think that she was really something remarkable; whereas she was only a passionate little girl, whose health had been injured by over indulgence, and whose disposition had been almost spoiled by her being permitted to tyrannize over her younger sister as much as she pleased, and to indulge in such fits of passion as we have seen, on the least provocation.
Mrs. Grey soon found out that she had undertaken a very troublesome task; but she was a kind good woman and used to children, and she was determined to do the best she could by the poor spoiled child.
When Etty came down at last, she found breakfast over. Her uncle was reading the paper, Eleanor was washing the breakfast dishes, and Stella dusting the room.
"Come, Etty, eat your breakfast," said her aunt, kindly, but decidedly. "Eleanor wants to put away the table."
Etty took her seat with a very dissatisfied face. "Everything is as cold as it can be!" said she, pettishly. "And I can't bear fish-balls."