"I am very glad to find," said Madame d'Altier, looking at her daughter, "that I can be attended to without compelling attention."
"But, mamma, I never told her not to touch my flowerpots," replied Emmeline.
"No; but probably for the smallest thing she breaks, you scold her so much, that she is afraid to run the risk of again exposing herself to your anger."
"It is absolutely necessary, mamma," she said, as she ascended the steps to take in her flowers, "Geneviève is so awkward, and pays so little attention, that...." As she uttered these words, one of the flowerpots slipped from her hands, fell on the steps, and was broken into a thousand pieces.
"She is so awkward," rejoined Madame d'Altier, "that precisely the same thing happens to her sometimes, that would happen to you as well, had you the same duties to perform."
"Indeed, mamma," said Emmeline, very much irritated, "what has happened to me is quite disagreeable enough without...."
"Without what, my child?"
Emmeline paused, ashamed of her impatience. Madame d'Altier took her hand, and made her sit down by her. "When your ill-humour is over, my child, we will reason together." Emmeline kissed in silence the hand of her mother, who said, "Is it then so very vexatious a matter, my child, to have broken this pot of coloured earth, which can be immediately replaced by one from the greenhouse, where you know you can choose for yourself?"
"No, mamma, but...."
"It cannot be on account of your anemone, which is past flowering, and which you told me you would return to the beds. You are spared the trouble of unpotting it." Emmeline smiled.