We have now seen the little lady at her various occupations, but we have still to see her when she scolds, for this is infallibly requisite in good housekeeping, and to overlook faults is in itself the greatest fault; but the question is, how to scold that your servants may neither fear nor laugh at you; and Lina could scold both gracefully and agreeably—indeed the manner in which it was done was generally the means of establishing good humour.
While she was sipping her coffee, out of a cup not much larger than a nut-shell, all at once she heard a noise of barking and running in the kitchen, as if some person was hunting her little greyhound.
She immediately jumped up, and ran into the kitchen. "Who is teasing my little dog?" she asked, in a voice of dove-like anger.
The servants all laughed, and the footman, trying to compose his features, replied, "It was Feeske, who was leaping up on the fireplace."
"Well, and must you strike the poor dog for that!—he feels it just as much as you would."
"Nobody beat him, Miss; only he put his head into the milk-ewer, and could not get it out again."
"Yes, because you are all so disorderly.—Come here, little Feeske! You should not have left the milk-ewer on the fireplace—come here, my poor little dog; did these bad people hurt you?"
She was obliged to break the ewer to free the little dog's head.
"Sure it's the pretty ewer that's to be pitied," said one of the servants, laughing.
"Well, I would not let the dog suffer for the sake of a ewer;" and then she returned to her father with a beaming countenance. "Have I not scolded them all well!"