"There, there! try not to cry," said aunt Madge, as she took off Susy's soiled clothes.
"But I can't stop crying, I feel so bad. If there's any body gets into a fuss it's always me! I'm all the time making some kind of trouble. Sometimes I wish there wasn't any such girl as me!"
Tears came into aunt Madge's kind gray eyes, and she made up her mind that the poor child should be comforted. So she quietly put away the silk dress she was so anxious to finish, and after dinner took the fresh, tidy, happy little Susy across the fields to aunt Martha's again, where the unlucky day was finished very happily after all.
"The truth is, Louise," said aunt Madge that night, after their return, "Lonnie spilled that ink, and Susy was not at all to blame. You scolded her without mercy for being careless, and she bore it all because she would not break her promise to that cowardly boy."
"O, how unjust I have been!" said aunt Louise, who did not mean to be unkind, in spite of her hasty way of speaking.
"You have been unjust," said aunt Madge. "Only think what a trifling thing it is for a little child to soil her dress! and what a great thing to have her keep her word! Susy has a tender heart, and it grieves her to be unjustly scolded; but she would bear it all rather than tell a falsehood. For my part I am proud of such a noble, truthful little niece."