"Yes, 'm," replied Dotty again, giving her mother a view of her rosy right ear.
Mrs. Parlin saw that Dotty was very much ashamed. Her face did not look as it had looked in the early morning. Then
"There was a hardness in her eye,
There was a hardness in her cheek:"
now she appeared as if she would be very much obliged to the nursery floor if it would open like a trap-door and let her fall through, out of everybody's sight.
"The little girl I am going to tell you about, Dotty, lived in this state. Her name was Harriet Snow. Her father and mother were both dead. She had occasional fits of temper, which were very dreadful indeed. At such times she would hop up and down and scream."
Dotty tied the two corners of her apron into a hard knot. The story was rather too personal.
"Was the little girl pretty?" said she, trying to change the subject.
"Not very pretty, I think. Her skin was dark; her eyes were black, and remarkably bright. When I saw her, she was thirteen years old; and you may know, Dotty, that by that time her face could not well be very pleasant: temper always leaves its marks."
Dotty looked at her little plump hands, as if she expected to see black spots on them.
"Sometimes Harriet beat her head against the wall so violently that there seemed to be danger of her dashing her brains out."