“Mamma! mamma!” cried Lewie, pulling imperiously at her gown; “mamma! sister feels sorry, speak to sister.”
“What is it, dear?” his mother asked.
“Speak to sister! sister crying,” said Lewie, pulling her with all the strength of his little hands towards Agnes.
“What is the matter, Agnes? Why are you crying? What did you say to me a few moments ago?” asked her mother.
Agnes tried to say “It is no matter, mamma,” bet she sobbed so bitterly that she could not form the words. But Lewie, who had seen and understood the whole thing, pulled the needle-case from his sister’s hand, and gave his mother to understand that Agnes had made it for her, and then he struck his little hand towards her and called her “naughty mamma, to make sister cry!”
More to please Lewie than for any other reason, Mrs. Elwyn took the needle-case, and said:
“Why Agnes, did you make this yourself, and for me? how pretty it is; isn’t it, Lewie? Now Agnes, you may fill it with needles for me.”
Agnes wiped her eyes and began her task, but that painful lump would not go away from her throat. Ah! if those kind words had only come at first!
How much suffering is caused to the hearts of little children by mere thoughtlessness, sometimes in those even who love them; by a want of sympathy in their little griefs and troubles, as great and all-important to them, as are the troubles of “children of a larger growth,” in their own estimation.