“Come along then, Miss Ella,” she said. “If you’ll be very good and not worrit-worrit if I’m out of your sight for half a minute, I’ll read to you for a little. What is it you want?”
She seated herself comfortably in a rocking chair by the fire, and took the child on her knee.
“Here now,” she said, carelessly picking up the first picture book that came to hand, “I’ll read you some of these nursery rhymes—‘Little Boy Blue.’”
“No,” said Ella crossly, “I don’t like singy stories. Read me real ones. ‘Laddin’s’ very nice.” But Harvey’s eyes had caught sight of another of the bright-coloured books.
“Oh, no,” she exclaimed, with a little malicious laugh, “we’ll have ‘Cinderella,’ Miss Ella. ‘Cinderella, Miss Ella,’ there’s a rhyme for you! It’s like your name, and she’s like you too. She had two big sisters, and her mamma was—” Here she coughed and stopped short.
“Her mamma was dead. I know the story,” put in Ella, “my mamma isn’t dead, so it isn’t like me. You’re talking nonsense, Harvey,” and she pushed the book aside and began to wriggle about impatiently.
“I’m not talking nonsense,” said Harvey sharply. “Just listen now, Miss Ella. Cinderella had two big sisters, and they were very cross to her—at least not always perhaps, but pretty often, and they’d come and scold for nothing at all.”
“Like Maddie this morning,” said Ella; “but it wasn’t me she scolded. It was you. The story isn’t like me; you’re very silly, Harvey.”
Harvey began to lose her temper; she was not going to be called “silly” even by a baby.
“Just you take care what you say, Miss Ella,” she said roughly, “you don’t know anything about it. The story doesn’t say the big sisters were bad to her when she was a little girl like you. But some day you’ll grow up and be a young lady, and then you’ll see. How would you like to have all the dirty work to do and old shabby clothes to wear, while Miss Maddie and Miss Ermie went flaunting about in silks and satins and feathers?”