"See what you have done, Marian," cried Caroline; "the silks will be spoiled with rolling about the garden."
"How can I help the wind?" answered Marian, sharply, and she seated herself to her work with a scornful toss of the head.
The silks were collected, the chairs re-arranged, and the little party again settled to their occupations; but harmony and happiness were at an end. The same change had come over the moral atmosphere which sometimes takes place in that of the physical world, even in the sunny month of June. The storm, even when it only menaces from afar, chases all brightness from the landscape, and causes a chilly air, which makes one sad and shivery, to take the place of the balmy summer breeze. So cold and so cheerless were now our young friends under the laurel.
Caroline sat with averted face. Lucy looked anxious and uncomfortable—she would almost rather have been less obliged to Marian than she ought to feel just now. As to Marian, she seemed oppressed, as the clouds are when charged with electric fluid. She had not room enough. Lucy came too near her. Her scissors would not cut. The doll's figure was bad, there was no fitting it. Poor doll! well for it, it was no baby, or sharp would have been its cries under the hands of its mantua-maker? As it was, it did not escape unhurt. As Marian turned it round with a sudden movement, not the gentlest in the world, its nose, that feature so difficult to preserve entire in the doll physiognomy, came in contact with the sharp edge of the stool, which served as a table, and when it again presented itself to the alarmed gaze of Lucy, its delicate tip was gone.
"Oh, my doll!" cried the little girl, her fear of Marian's anger entirely vanishing in grief at this dire calamity; "you have quite spoiled her!"
"Where? I have not hurt her, child!"
"Yes, you have," said Caroline; "look at her nose, that is with putting yourself into a passion about nothing."
"Who said I was in a passion?" cried Marian. "I never said a word; but you are always accusing me of being in a passion."
"Because you are so angry if the least word is said," answered Caroline. "If you had not banged the doll down so, it would not have been broken."
"Oh, very well! if that is the case, the sooner I leave you the better!" said Marian, rising with an air of great dignity, but with a beating heart and flashing eye, and she went away.