'Well, I don't know what you call hard,' replied her cousin. 'I find mine rather difficult sometimes, but Aunt Mary is so kind in explaining everything, that it is quite a pleasure to learn with her.'
'I'm sure I shouldn't think her kind,' said the ungrateful Mabel. 'I can't bear people that are so prim and stiff as Aunt Mary is, always seeming determined to make you do just what they like, whether you wish it or not.'
'Oh, Mabel!' said her cousin, 'I wonder how you can speak so disrespectfully of dear Aunt Mary; and what you are saying is quite untrue.'
'And I suppose,' retorted the ill-conditioned girl, 'you will go and tell her what I have said, and we shall have a row.'
Clara was so astonished at hearing this speech from her cousin, that she suspended the operation of dressing for a moment.
Then she said quickly:
'Mabel, we don't tell tales here; and I never before heard anyone speak unkindly of our aunt, nor did I ever hear her speak unkindly to anyone. Don't let us talk any more,' she added; 'I am going to say my prayers. Come, kneel down with me, and let us thank our Father in heaven for taking care of us through the night, and ask Him to bless us before we begin our day's work.'
Mabel knelt down beside the bed with her cousin. She had always been accustomed to repeat a set form of words; whether they were the utterances of the 'soul's sincere desire,' we cannot say: but we do know that if we pray in sincerity against sin, we shall strive against it, and Mabel was not doing this. Clara's first occupation on going down stairs was to look after her feathered family; and in this she had a ready seconder in Mabel, whose delight in seeing the pretty chickens was unbounded.
'Oh, do let me take one out, Clara! I won't hurt it; dear, sweet little thing!' she exclaimed, as she was just putting out her hand to take one of them up, but was held back by her cousin, and so prevented from receiving the meditated peck which the old hen was evidently preparing for her.
'Just in time,' said Clara; 'old Netty would have made you repent of your boldness, had you taken hold of one of her pets.'