"No; I tell you, you shall mend it just now. I don't care if Miss Layton is angry. I only hope she'll give you a right good whipping, for if you had behaved yourself last night, you might have had plenty of time to learn your lessons."
Ella wiped away her tears, and commenced her work, for she knew that crying was of no use, and would only hinder her from doing her work quickly and well. She took a great deal of pains, and was very careful not to make a single long stitch, and at last it was done, and very nicely too, she thought, but when she showed it to her aunt, she was told that it was puckered a little, and must all come out again.
"I can't do it a bit better, and I won't," said Ella, throwing the dress on the floor.
"You shall," said her aunt. "Pick up that dress this minute, and do as I bid you."
Ella neither moved to obey, nor answered a word.
"Sallie," called out Miss Prudence to the servant girl, who was in the next room washing up the breakfast dishes, "bring me a switch, till I make this child mind me."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Sallie; and the next minute she appeared at the door with a switch, which she had just cut from the willow tree in the yard.
"Pick up that dress," said Miss Prudence again, flourishing the switch. Ella stood still, mute and obstinate. Aunt Prudence seized her by the arm, and laid the switch over her shoulders with all her strength. Ella bore it without a word.
"Now, will you mind me?" again inquired her aunt, pausing for breath.
"No!" said Ella.