Mrs. Ried looked distressed. "Don't, Ester," she said; "don't speak in that loud, sharp tone. Sadie, you should not encourage Julia in speaking improperly to her sister. I think myself that Ester was hard with her. The poor child did not mean any harm; but she must not be rude to anybody."
"Oh, yes," Ester said, speaking bitterly, "of course I am the one to blame; I always am. No one in this house ever does any thing wrong except me."
Mrs. Ried sighed heavily, and Sadie turned away and ran up stairs, humming:
"Oh, would I were a buttercup,
A blossom in the meadow."
And Julia, in her mother's room, exchanged her wet and muddy garments for clean ones, and cried; washed her face in the clear, pure water until it was fresh and clean, and cried again, louder and harder; her heart was all bruised and bleeding. She had not meant to be careless. She had been carefully dressed that morning to spend the long, bright Saturday with Vesta Griswold. She had intended to go swiftly and safely to the post-office with the small white treasure intrusted to her care; but those paper dolls were so pretty, and of course there was no harm in walking along with Addie, and looking at them. How could she know that the hateful letter was going to tumble out of her apron pocket? Right there, too, the only place along the road where there was the least bit of mud to be seen! Then she had honestly supposed that a little clean water from the creek, applied with her smooth white handkerchief, would take the stains right out of the envelope, and the sun would dry it, and it would go safely to Uncle Ralph's after all; but, instead of that, the hateful, hateful thing slipped right out of her hand, and went floating down the stream; and at this point Julia's sobs burst forth afresh. Presently she took up her broken thread of thought, and went on: How very, very ugly Ester was; if she hadn't been there, her mother would have listened kindly to her story of how very sorry she was, and how she meant to do just right. Then she would have forgiven her, and she would have been freshly dressed in her clean blue dress instead of her pink one, and would have had her happy day after all; and now she would have to spend this bright day all alone; and, at this point, her tears rolled down in torrents.
"Jule," called a familiar voice, under her window, "where are you?
Come down and mend my sail for me, won't you?"
Julia went to the window and poured into Alfred's sympathetic ears the story of her grief and her wrongs.
"Just exactly like her," was his comment on Ester's share in the tragedy. "She grows crosser every day. I guess, if I were you, I'd let her wait a spell before I asked her forgiveness."
"I guess I shall," sputtered Julia. "She was meaner than any thing, and I'd tell her so this minute, if I saw her; that's all the sorry I am."
So the talk went on; and when Alfred was called to get Ester a pail of water, and left Julia in solitude, she found her heart very much strengthened in its purpose to tire everybody out in waiting for her apology.