“You might forget her,” said Margaret, hesitatingly, for she did not wish to grieve Clara. “Some of your schoolmates might call to you, or something else might take your attention.”
“You ought not to say so,” replied Clara, looking a little offended. “I know I forget things sometimes, but they are almost always trifling matters, such as errands, or some other little thing. I could not forget Ellen. Could I, mother?” she continued, appealing to her mother, who was sitting in the next room, and had heard the conversation..
“I think Margaret is right, Clara,” replied Mrs. Gray. “While we see you so forgetful of little duties, it would not be proper to intrust you with any thing important. I think you have improved in this respect lately, but you are still very thoughtless, and do not make so much effort to correct the fault as I could wish.”
Clara did not look very pleasant while her mother was speaking.
“I do not think I am any more forgetful than other people,” she said. “Every one forgets sometimes.”
“You speak improperly, Clara,” said her mother. “You are not in a good, humble state,—willing to acknowledge your faults and try to remove them.”
Clara made no reply, and soon left the room. She felt grieved and displeased that her little cousin could not be intrusted to her care, and she felt disposed to charge her mother and Margaret with unkindness, rather than to blame herself for deserving the mortification.
Not many days after the above conversation, Clara and Ellen were playing in the sitting-room, while Mrs. Gray and Margaret were busily engaged in one of the upper rooms, quilting a bed-spread. There was no fire in the room where the children were, and it appeared perfectly safe to leave them together for an hour or two.
Clara was keeping house, and she frequently sent Ellen to different parts of the room to purchase such articles as she supposed herself to need. Sometimes she was ordered to go to the grocer’s for tea and sugar, sometimes to the market for meat and vegetables. Ellen would run cheerfully to the place pointed out, pick up a bit of paper or any thing else that she could find, and return with it to Clara. I suppose you have all seen children playing in this manner.
“You must have a market-basket, Ellen,” said Clara. “I know where there is one that will do nicely. It belongs to me, but I never used it, so mother put it up on the upper shelf in this closet. I will take it down.”