"Oh I'm sure I won't, Miss Layton. I can't help getting a little angry sometimes, but I'm certain almost that I never will get so dreadfully angry as I used to, for I know it is so ugly, and so wicked."
Miss Layton shook her head doubtingly. "Time will show, Ella. Bad habits are not so easily got rid of. But good bye, child," she added, stooping and kissing the little girl's cheek, "you know you have to turn off here."
"Good bye, Miss Layton," said Ella, "I mean to have real good lessons to-morrow."
"Oh, Ella, how pretty your flowers are! won't you give me one?" exclaimed a little girl who overtook Ella just as she was passing down the lane which bounded that part of her aunt's grounds where her own little garden was situated. Ella was naturally a very generous child.
"Yes, a good many more than one, Lucy," said she, "if you will wait till I can get round to them, for you know the gate is round on the other side."
"Oh, I'm in a dreadful hurry, Ellie," replied Lucy, "Mother told me not to stop a minute, and I'm all out of breath with running. Can't you climb the fence?"
"Well, if you're in such a very great hurry I suppose I must for once, though aunt Prudence wouldn't like it very much; but then she always scolds me, and I guess she might about as well scold for one thing as another," said Ella, and as she spoke, she threw her satchel of books over, and then climbed the fence. In a moment she was on the other side, and had gathered a handful of flowers and reached them through the fence to Lucy, who still stood on the outside. Lucy ran on, and Ella picked up her satchel and walked into the house.
Now it happened that Miss Prudence was in an unusually bad humour. Everything had seemed to go wrong with her that day. A neighbour's boy had left the garden gate open, and before it was noticed some pigs had got in and destroyed a great many of her choicest vegetables and flowers, and while she and Sallie, her maid, were engaged in chasing them out, the cakes in the oven had nearly burnt to a cinder; and, to crown all, Sallie, flurried by the scolding of her mistress, had let fall and broken a much valued dish of old-fashioned china. In consequence of these various mishaps Miss Prudence was in one of her very worst humours, which is saying a good deal, as she was not at any time remarkably sweet-tempered.
"Your dress torn again, miss!" she exclaimed, the instant she caught sight of her niece. "You've been climbing fences again, hey?"