“Make your ball round again Master Norman!” she exclaimed, “it would be a hard job to do that, with the big slit which I see in it. You must get a fresh bladder of the proper size, and then perhaps we may be able to mend the leather case.”
“Can you get me a bladder?” asked Norman.
“A bladder costs money! You must ask your papa to get one for you,” answered the cook, who was not particularly willing to oblige him for the way he had treated his sister, and Susan had prevented him from gaining the goodwill of the servants.
“But I say you must get me a bladder,” exclaimed Norman, “what are you? you are only a servant. I will make you do what I want.”
“I tell you what young gentleman, I will pin a dish-cloth to your back, and send you out of the kitchen, if you speak to me in that way. I am busy now in preparing your grandmamma’s luncheon, and I cannot attend to you.”
Norman after walking about looked very angry for some minutes. Seeing, however, the cook take up a dirty cloth and draw a pin from her dress, he thought it wiser to walk off, and made his way back into the garden.
“I do not see why Fanny should have a beautiful doll and I only a stupid bit of leather,” he muttered to himself. “If I can get hold of that doll of hers, I know what I will do to it, and then she won’t be a bit better off than I am.”
Instead of attempting to overcome the spirit of envy, which sprung up in his heart, he went on muttering to himself that he would soon spoil Miss Lucy’s beauty.
He had not improved in temper, when he was summoned in to dinner.
Neither Mrs Leslie nor his mamma said anything about Fanny’s garden, and he himself was not inclined to introduce the subject. His grandmamma did not speak to him, for she was anxious if possible to make him ashamed of his conduct. Discerning as she was, she was little aware of the obstinacy of his disposition, and that all he cared for, was to avoid punishment.