CHAPTER SIXTH.
EMILIE'S TRIALS.
The truth must be told of Emilie; she was not clever with her hands, and she was, nevertheless, a little too confident in her power of execution, so willing and anxious was she to serve you. The directions Fred gave her were far from clear; and after the paper was all cut and was to be pasted together, sorrowful to say, it would not do at all. Fred, in spite of his late apology was very angry, and seizing the scissors said he should know better another time than to ask Miss Schomberg to do what she did not understand. "You have wasted my paper, too," said the boy, "and my time in waiting for what I could better have done myself."
Emilie was very sorry, and she said so; but a balloon could not exactly be made out of her sorrow, and nothing short of a balloon would pacify Fred, that was plain. "Must it be ready for to-morrow?" she asked.
"Yes, it must," he said. Three other boys were going to send up balloons. It was the Queen's coronation day, and he had promised to take a fourth balloon to the party; and the rehearsal of all this stirred up Fred's ire afresh, and he looked any thing but kind at Miss Schomberg. What was to be done? Edith suggested driving to the next market town to buy one; but her papa wanted the pony gig, so they could only sally forth to Mrs. Cox's for some more tissue paper, and begin the work again. This was very provoking to Edith.
"To have spent all the morning and now to be going to spend all the afternoon over a trumpery balloon, which you can't make after all, Miss Schomberg, is very tiresome, and I wanted to go to old Joe Murray's to-day and see if the children have picked me up any corallines."
"I am very sorry, dear, my carelessness should punish you; but don't disturb me by grumbling and I will try and get done before tea, and then we will go together." This time Emilie was more successful; she took pains to understand what was to be done, and the gores of her balloon fitted beautifully.
"Now Edith, dear, ring for some paste," said Emilie, just as the clock struck four; Margaret answered the bell. Margaret was the housemaid, and so far from endeavouring in her capacity to overcome evil with good, she was perpetually making mischief and increasing any evil there might be, either in kitchen or parlour, by her mode of delivering a message. She would be sure to add her mite to any blame that she might hear, in her report to the kitchen, and thus, without being herself a bad or violent temper, was continually fomenting strife, and adding fuel to the fire of the cook, who was of a very choleric turn. The request for paste was civilly made and received, but Emilie unfortunately called Margaret back to say, "Oh, ask cook, please, to make it stiffer than she did the last that we had for the kite; that did not prove quite strong."