"Yes," said cousin Joseph, in his slow way, "Marjery is smart enough, but she ought to be very smart to make up for her heedlessness."
There, he had pricked the bubble that time! I twinkled right out.
And it was the last time Julia admired me; for she happened to think just then of her gold watch. It was not on Fel's neck; it had gone into the well where the stars were. Seth got it out, but it was battered and bruised, and something had happened to the inside of it, so it wouldn't tick.
Miss Julia never took me in her lap again; but she liked Fel as well as ever. She said Fel was not at all to blame. I knew she wasn't, and somehow, after that dreadful affair, I was willing people should love Fel better than me. I had been fairly frightened out of my crossness to her. O, what if I had drowned her? Every time I wanted to snub her I thought of that, and stopped. I suppose I put my arms round her neck fifty times, and asked, "Do you love me jus the same as if I hadn't drowned you?"
And she said "Yes," every time, the precious darling!
I had a very lame arm not long after this; it almost threw me into a fever. I was ashamed to have that doctor come, for they had told me what was the matter. It has always been my luck, children, if I ever tried to show off, to get nicely paid for it!
Now I think of it, Dotty, how easily Fel could have turned upon me at this time, and said, "Ho, little meddle-girl! Got a sore arm, too!"
But you may be sure she never thought of such a thing. It grieved her to see me lie in bed, and toss about with pain. She sat beside me, and patted my cheeks with her little, soft hands, and sometimes read to me, from a Sabbath school book, about a good girl, named Mary Lothrop,—she could read as well as most grown people, for she really was a remarkable child,—but I didn't like to hear about Mary Lothrop, and begged her to stop.
"She's too tremendous good," said I. "It killed her to be so good, and I'm afraid—"
I believe I never told Fel what I was afraid of; but it was, that she was "too tremendous good" herself, and would "die little," as Mary Lothrop did. I thought she seemed like Mary; and hadn't Miss Julia said she was too good for this world? O, what if God should want her up in heaven? I had thought of this before; but if I had really believed it, I should all along have treated her very differently. We should none of us speak unkindly if we believed our friends were soon going away from us, out of this world. What would I give now if I had never called the tears into that child's gentle eyes!