Dotty thought there was no peace for her, and began to shake her head again in despair. The more Tate talked, the more she shook it; and while it was going like a tree in the wind, and she was bending on her friend a feebly furious scowl, Miss Parker drew near.
“Why, Dotty, I am astonished,” said she, with marked displeasure; “what makes you behave so strangely to-day? You keep jerking your neck as if you meant to break it off. The children are watching you, and laughing.”
Dotty tried to make an excuse, but could not think of any, and her silence seemed to Miss Parker like sullenness.
“O, dear, dear!” thought the unfortunate child, “she thinks I mean to be naughty; and it’s just ’cause I try so dreadfully to be good! It’s no use! I may eat all the alum there is in the milliners’ shops, and it don’t do anything to my tongue. If it did, it’s no use. Miss Parker never scolded when I whispered, and now when I don’t whisper, she does!”
This was a very unpleasant reflection; it confused the child’s ideas of right and wrong.
“It’s ’cause I want to please Miss Parker, that I said I wouldn’t whisper; but it doesn’t please her—it displeases her. She’ll never love me ’thout she’s a mind to, and I don’t mean to try.”
So, when the teacher had passed down the aisle, and was hearing the primer class, Dotty turned round to Tate, and said, with a reckless smile,—
“Talk away, Tate. I give it up.”
“I thought you’d give it up,” replied Tate, triumphantly.