'It was my own money, mother, and you said I might do as I pleased with it.'
However, Agnes knew a great deal better than to think for a moment that this was any excuse for her selfishness.
'Yes it was your own money,' replied Mrs. Clavering, 'and it certainly was given you to spend as you liked. But I am sorry, very sorry, that I have a little girl who never considers anybody's pleasure and amusement but her own.'
'The blue bag was sold,' said Agnes, after a pause of a few minutes, during which she had been picking the pins out of her mother's pincushion and dropping them one by one on the floor.
Mrs. Clavering took the pincushion gently from the hand of her little girl, and desired her to pick up the pins which she had been so carelessly scattering.
'And were all the scissors and pincushions and thimbles sold, too?' continued Mrs. Clavering. 'And would it not have been possible to have had another bag made, like the one you saw the other day?'
'Yes, mother,' replied Agnes, as she replaced the last pin in the pincushion; 'the woman did offer to make another, but I had no money left then.'
'This will never do, Agnes, indeed,' said Mrs. Clavering. 'If you are allowed to indulge all your wishes in this way while you continue a child, you will grow up to be a disagreeable and overbearing woman. Did you never read, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them"? Come, tell me; try and recollect.' And as Mrs. Clavering spoke her voice softened, and she laid her cheek on the head of her little girl, who had seated herself on a stool at her feet. 'Did you ever read of this?'
'Yes, mother, I have read it in the Bible,' replied Agnes, as she turned round towards her mother, and laid her head coaxingly on her lap.
'It was one of the directions of our blessed Saviour,' continued Mrs. Clavering, 'and His directions we ought always to obey. Now, supposing that your Cousin Laura had determined to give you anything she knew you were very desirous of having, should you like her to change her mind, because she fancied something for herself which she could not purchase without doing so? Should you not think she was unkind in doing so?'