"What did you do with the core and the peel?"
"Mamma, I—you know I had no knife——"
"What did you do with it?"
No answer, except that Maria's cheeks grew bright.
"You know what you did with it, I suppose. Now bring it to me, Maria."
Colouring angrily as well as confusedly, Maria went to the mantelpiece where stood two little china vases, and took down one of them.
"Carry it to your Aunt Candy," said her mother. "Look at it, Erminia. Now bring it here. Take this vase away, and empty it, and wash it, and put it in its place again; and never use it to put apple peels in, as long as you live."
Maria burst into tears and went away with the vase.
"Just a little careless," said her aunt.
"Heedless—always was," said her mother. "Now Matilda is not so; and Anne and Letitia were neither of them so. It is a mystery to me, what makes one child so different from another child?"