Part 3

"Well, Amy, you need not bite my head off. I don't wonder you are angry. I am sure I should be, but you needn't blame me. Anyhow, if I were you, I would show that I did not mean to be domineered over, or coaxed either. 'But Amy has such a way with her—she can twist any one round her finger,' as she says."

"She will not twist me round her finger," said Amy. "I am not such a fool as she takes me for."

Eva went home that night very much grieved. She had made many advances to Amy during the day, but they had all been repelled, and with so much coldness and rudeness that she did not know how to go any farther. She did not more than half believe what Dora had told her, and yet the words were not without their influence upon her mind.

"Amy must know she is wrong," she argued, "and that is what makes her so unwilling to make up. O dear! I don't know what to do! I believe I will tell mother all about it, and see what she says."

"How many times have you sighed during the last half hour, Eva?" asked Mrs. Morrison that evening, as she and Eva were sitting together knitting by the firelight.

The evenings were growing long and cool, and the open fire seemed very pleasant and cheerful.

"What is the matter?"

"I don't know, mamma—yes, I do know, too, I suppose!" answered Eva, rousing herself. "I did not know that I sighed, though."

"Has anything unpleasant happened in school?" asked Mrs. Morrison.

"Yes, mamma—that is, not exactly in school; but something very unpleasant has happened, and the worst of it is, I don't know what to do about it."

"Suppose you tell me the story," said Mrs. Morrison. "Perhaps I shall be able to advise you."

Eva sat down at her mother's feet on the rug, and told her the whole story as far as she knew it.

"Somebody has been making mischief," was Mrs. Morrison's comment.

"That is what I suppose, mamma, and I think I know who the somebody is. I believe it is Dora Hayes."

"You should not say so unless you have good reasons," said her mother. "Why do you think so?"

Eva told her reasons.

"It looks so, certainly," remarked Mrs. Morrison. "Well, Eva, it is always a great comfort when we can find a plain Scripture rule to guide our conduct in difficult places, and I think there is one which applies exactly to such cases as this."

"What do you mean, mamma?"

"'If thy brother trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone,'" repeated Mrs. Morrison. "Does not that rule seem to throw some light upon your path?"

"I don't know—yes, I suppose it does. And yet—after the way Amy has treated me to-day, I do not feel very much like going to her!"

"Take care, Eva! Don't listen to the whispers of pride. Remember you do not know what provocation Amy may think she has had."

"If she thought I had done wrong, why did not she come and tell me so, instead of sulking and refusing to speak to me?" said Eva.

"Perhaps she did not feel like it, after the way she thought you had treated her," said Mrs. Morrison, smiling. "At any rate, Eva, her conduct is not the rule for yours."

Eva sat silent for a few minutes. She had her pride as well as Amy, and she had been deeply mortified at the way in which Amy had repelled her really generous advances.

But Eva had this advantage over her friend, that she called her faults by their right names and combatted them as faults, instead of coaxing and nursing them as virtues.

"Well, mamma, I will do as you say," said she, at last. "I believe it will be the best way. I don't think Amy will refuse to hear me, and if she does, I shall be no worse off than I am now."

"That is right, my dear," said her mother. "But, Eva, don't forget to ask for grace to be gentle and humble. Remember 'Charity suffereth long and is kind.' Even if Amy is unreasonable, do not get out of patience with her. You do not know what provocation she may think she has received."

As soon as breakfast was over, Eva put on her hat, and set out to find Amy. Mrs. Preston lived in a pretty house in the suburbs, and Eva was tolerably sure of finding Amy at work in her flower-garden, where even at this late season she always found something to do.

Amy was busy among her flowers, as Eva expected, and just as Eva came up, Amy opened the side gate to throw some dry stems into the street. She started when she saw Eva, and seemed about to turn away, but Eva gave her no time. She walked up to her friend, and holding out both hands, said, with her usual frank manner: "Now, Amy, I want to have you tell me what all this trouble is about."

Amy colored. "Surely you know as well as I do!" said she, trying to speak coldly.

"I know nothing at all!" replied Eva. "Only that Dora Hayes says that you called me a liar and a hypocrite, and, as she has told me such a story about you, I think it very likely that she has told you something about me."

"It was what she told me you said that made me call you so!" said Amy, just ready to cry.

"So I supposed, and therefore I want to know what it was. Now let us sit down on the stops and have it all out. What did she say?"

Amy began to feel a little ashamed of herself, by this time, and to see that she had been hasty to believe evil of her friend. She began at the beginning and told Eva all that Dora had said about her.

"I thought she had had a hand in it," said Eva, when the story was finished. "She came to me in the first place and wanted to tell me something that I was never to tell—something somebody had said about me; but I told her that I always told mother everything, and that I never wanted to hear what people said about me, so she subsided. The truth of the matter is this. Dora was teasing me one day to give her my amber necklace, which I would not do."

"'You would give it to Amy Preston in a minute, if she asked you,' said she; 'you think more of that shop-girl than you do of me, though I am your cousin.'"

"'Well,' said I, half laughing, 'you see, Dora, Amy is a cheaper friend than you are. She never wants anything and you want everything.'"

"So much for that! As for the dress story, there is a little foundation for that, too. Dora asked me a few days ago if that was my old dress you were wearing."

"'Of course,' said I. 'Amy wears all my dresses and I wear hers. That is the way we show our regard for each other.'"

"'But don't you really give her dresses?' she asked."

"All the girls laughed, for every one knows how proud you are about receiving presents, Amy."

"And I said, to carry on the joke, 'To be sure I do! I buy all her clothes and books, and my father pays her school bills.'"

"You see, Amy—though you must not tell any one—papa really does pay Dora's school bills, and mamma gives her a great many things; and I thought perhaps by giving her such a hint, I would make her hold her peace, and so I did. As for the rest, it is a sheer manufacture out of whole cloth. I should think you ought to have known me better, Amy."

Amy colored scarlet. "Well, Eva, I suppose I ought, but then you see—there is such a difference—in short you are rich and I am poor, and if you were in my place, you would see how natural it is to be jealous."

"It may be natural, but I cannot think it's right," said Eva. "I don't think poor people ought to be jealous of rich people, any more than rich people ought to despise poor people. Besides, Amy, I should never think of calling you poor. But did Dora say anything else?"

"Never mind what she said," replied Amy. "I ought never to have listened to her. But it was not so much what she said as what she insinuated. However, I was a fool to mind her, for I know of old just what a mischievous thing she is. She has tried it upon me before. When I first came to school, she told me some of the girls made a fuss because I was a shop-girl, and I don't suppose there was any truth in that either."

"Not one word, I dare say. But now, Amy, promise me one thing. If ever you think I have done wrong, just come to me as I have come to you and ask me about it. If we do so, we shall never have any lasting quarrels, I am sure, and no tattler can make mischief between us. Isn't it almost time to go to school? I will wait for you and we will go together."

Amy kept Eva waiting while she went up to her own little room, and there in a short but earnest prayer, asked God's forgiveness for her jealousy and unkindness and begged Him to pour into her heart "that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before Him."

Dora stared in wonder when she saw Amy and Eva enter the school-room in their old fashion, with their arms round each other's waists.

"So you two have made up your quarrel," she said, in recess, with her disagreeable laugh. "Well, it is a fine thing to have a forgiving temper, especially when it is so much to one's own advantage as it is to Amy's, in this case."

"There is nothing to forgive, as it happens," answered Eva, coolly. "Somebody told Amy a set of stories about me which were either entirely false or else misrepresented, but when she came to hear the truth it was all right again."

"Amy Preston, you are as mean as you can be," exclaimed Dora. "You promised not to tell."

"I did not promise not to tell," said Amy. "However, I did not tell."

"How did Eva find out then, I should like to know?"

"Because," said Eva, answering for her friend; "you came to me and told what Amy said about me. And I remember what I heard an old Scotch woman say about talebearers, that a dog which would fetch a bone would carry a bone."

Depend upon it, girls, the old Scotch woman's proverb speaks the truth. A person who will come and tell you a story about what somebody has said of you, will tell that person what you have said about them; and in neither case will the story be the exact truth. Never listen for a moment to such tales, if you can help it; and if you cannot help listening, let the words go "in at one ear and out at the other."

If, however, you think your friend has offended you, go and ask her about it kindly and frankly; and two to one the offence will vanish into thin air.

But again, I say, never listen to talebearers, for "the words of a talebearer are as wounds."

"Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer the strife ceaseth."—(Prov. xxvi. 20.)

[Illustration]

[Illustration: ESTHER'S BAD DAY, OR, "I COULDN'T HELP IT." Frontispiece.]

[Illustration]

ESTHER'S BAD DAY,

OR,

"I COULDN'T HELP IT."

IT was a good while after six and a very bright sunny spring morning, yet Esther was not yet out of bed, when somebody knocked at her door.

"O dear!" said she, in a sleepy, pettish tone, "I wish people would only let me alone a minute. Come in!"

The last words were spoken aloud, and a very pretty girl, some years older than Esther, opened the door. She was partly dressed and had her comb and brush in her hand.

"Why, Etty, not up yet!" she exclaimed. "I thought you would be nearly dressed. I came to ask if I might finish my dressing by your glass, for papa wants the painters to begin on my room as soon as they come."

"Of course you can," replied Etty, not very graciously, however. "What time is it?"

"About half-past six. You ought to be up, Etty."

"Oh, there is plenty of time."

"I don't know. Time slips away very fast in the morning."

Eleanor went back to her roam to look for something she wanted. When she came back, Etty had scrambled up to the end of the bed next the window, and, still in her night-gown, and with her hair hanging over her shoulders, was reading a story-book, which she had drawn from under her pillow. In the book, perhaps, might be found the cause of her morning sleepiness. When a little girl reads in bed till her candle burns out, she is apt to be rather heavy-headed next morning.

"You will be late for breakfast," said Eleanor. "I fear I shall be late myself, I have been so hindered; but, Etty, I am sure you will be behindhand."

"O no, I sha'n't. I can dress in ten minutes, easily."

"You cannot dress properly in ten minutes," said Eleanor, busily tying up her hair; "and, Etty, there is something else besides dressing to be done before you go down-stairs."

Etty shrugged her shoulders impatiently but made no answer.

Eleanor went on with her dressing, and said no more till she had finished. Then turning to, Etty, who was still reading, she said, seriously:

"Now, Etty, you have only fifteen minutes left. You may get ready for breakfast, perhaps, if you lose no more time."

"Do let me be, Eleanor!" answered Etty, angrily. "I know what I am about! I wish you would go away and mind your own business!"

"Very well," said Eleanor, and quietly gathering up her dressing things she left the room without another word.

Etty looked at the clock and then at her book.

"I will only read to the end of this paragraph," said she. "That will not take long, and I can easily get ready after that."

But it is not always easy to stop at the end of a paragraph, and Etty read on till she was startled by hearing the church clock strike seven, followed by the energetic ringing of the breakfast-bell at the foot of the stairs.

"O dear!" exclaimed Etty, throwing down her book and scrambling out of bed. "Now I shall be late again; that will be the third time this week, and uncle will be angry. It is all Eleanor's fault. She ought to have made me got up."

Etty hastened to dress, but as usually happens at such times, she found that the more she hurried, the less she got on. She broke her boot-lacing and could not find another. She had been in such a hurry to get to her story-book the night before, that she had neglected to braid up her hair, and it was all hanging in what nurses call "witch-knots," and the more she pulled at it, the worse it snarled.

"Now where is that ribbon! I am sure it was here last night. I suppose Eleanor has put it out of place. O dear, I do wish people would keep out of my room and let my things alone!" snapped Etty, tumbling over the things on the dressing-table.

"There, now!" As she spoke, she overturned a tall bottle of cologne, which, with its pretty bronze holder, had been one of her birthday presents. She had often been told never to set the bottle down out of the holder, but she had a trick of leaning it against the side of the glass.

The tall bottle fell on a pretty hand-mirror with a carved frame, and both were broken to pieces. At this new calamity, Etty burst into tears, and throwing her brush to the farther end of the room, she flung herself down on the floor and cried so as to be heard all over the house.

The family were becoming tolerably well used to Etty's "tantrums," and as they were at prayers, nobody moved till the prayer was finished.

"Please, aunt, may I go and see what ails Etty?" said Stella. She was Etty's younger sister, but as she slept with Eleanor, she had not seen Etty that morning.

"No, my dear, I will go myself," said Mrs. Grey.

Stella said no more, but she looked very uncomfortable, not to say distressed.

"You need not look so unhappy, my dear Stella," said Eleanor. "You don't think mamma will be unkind to Etty, do you?"

"No," said Stella, "aunt is never unkind to any one; but Etty does go on so when she gets one of her bad days. Aunt is not used to her, and I am afraid she will be very much displeased."

When Mrs. Grey went up-stairs, she found Etty still lying on the floor, crying and sobbing.

"What is the matter now?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Why are you not ready for breakfast?"

"O dear, I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!" sobbed Etty.

"Etty, if I ever hear you say that again, I shall punish you!" said Mrs. Grey. "Stop crying directly, and tell me what all this is about. How came this bottle broken, and the mirror, too? And here is the cologne running all over the bureau. What have you been about?"

"It is all Eleanor's fault," sobbed Etty, getting up from the floor. "She came in here to dress, and she has put all my things out of place so that I cannot find anything; and looking for my hair ribbon, I knocked down the bottle and broke it and—" Etty was going to wish herself dead again, but she stopped just in time.

"Is not this your ribbon?" asked Mrs. Grey, taking up one which was hanging on the glass in plain sight.

"I don't care, I could not find it," Etty was beginning, but her aunt stopped her.

"I do not want to hear any more now. Dress yourself and come down-stairs as quickly as you can?"

Esther and Stella Grey were orphan children, who had come to live with their uncle and aunt. Mr. and Mrs. Grey had adopted the children as their own, and treated them kindly in every respect.

Stella was very happy in her new home—happier in fact than she had ever been before. She was a quiet little thing, very gentle and good; but not at all pretty, and not particularly bright.

Etty, on the contrary, was both pretty and intelligent; but she was far from being as pleasant a child to live with as her sister. Esther had always been the favorite with her mother, who was not by any means a sensible woman. Ever since she could remember she had been petted and indulged, and talked about before her face as "a very peculiar nervous child," "a child requiring very delicate management," till she had learned to think that she was really something remarkable; whereas she was only a passionate little girl, whose health had been injured by over indulgence, and whose disposition had been almost spoiled by her being permitted to tyrannize over her younger sister as much as she pleased, and to indulge in such fits of passion as we have seen, on the least provocation.

Mrs. Grey soon found out that she had undertaken a very troublesome task; but she was a kind good woman and used to children, and she was determined to do the best she could by the poor spoiled child.

When Etty came down at last, she found breakfast over. Her uncle was reading the paper, Eleanor was washing the breakfast dishes, and Stella dusting the room.

"Come, Etty, eat your breakfast," said her aunt, kindly, but decidedly. "Eleanor wants to put away the table."

Etty took her seat with a very dissatisfied face. "Everything is as cold as it can be!" said she, pettishly. "And I can't bear fish-balls."

"Well, there are plenty of nice potatoes, and bread and butter."

"I hate—" Etty was beginning, but Mr. Grey stopped her.

"Eat your breakfast and say no more about it, Esther!" said he, sharply. For he had nerves as well as his niece, and her whining grated upon them sadly. "You have made quite disturbance enough for one morning."

Etty shrugged her shoulders and made up a face, but she was afraid of her uncle and said nothing more. She drank two cups of coffee and was just about pouring out a third, when her aunt stopped her.

"No more, Etty! Two of those cups are quite enough for any little girl."

Etty rose from the table with a flounce, and gave the coffee pot a push which sent it off the table. Stella was close by and caught it, but not in time to save Etty's dress from a deluge.

"There now, see what you made me do, you awkward little toad!" exclaimed Etty, angrily, giving her sister a push. "I wish you were a thousand miles off, Stella Grey. You are always getting me into trouble."

Stella, who was used to her sister's hasty speeches, did not reply; but Eleanor answered for her. She was very fond of Stella, and did not like to hear her falsely accused. "Why, Etty, Stella did not touch you. She caught the pot and risked her own hands to save you from being scalded. You ought to be ashamed to speak so to your sister!"

"Never mind," whispered Stella. "Don't say anything to her, you only make her worse."

"Etty," said Mr. Grey, "go up and change your dress, and don't come down again till you are in a good humor. Let me hear no crying, or slamming of doors, either," he added, sharply. "We have had quite enough for once. I begin to wish that child had never come into the house," he said to Mrs. Grey, as Etty left the room, followed presently by Stella. "She destroys the whole comfort of the family."

"She is certainly very troublesome," replied Mrs. Grey, sighing. "However, we must have patience. I really think she is improving. She has not had one of these bad days in some time."

"Since when?" asked Mr. Grey.

"Since last week," answered his wife, smiling. "She used to have them every other day when she first came. But I begin to think with you that we shall have to be more decided with her. However, we will try to get on quietly to-day, so that the pleasure of the excursion may not be spoiled for poor Stella."

Meantime Stella was up-stairs coaxing Etty to stop crying and change her dress so as to be ready for their lessons at nine o'clock.

"Come, Etty, do," she urged. "You will not be ready when Miss Beach comes, and then you will have a bad mark again. Do put on your other dress."

"I won't!" said Etty, passionately. "I wish I was dead! They would never dare to treat me so if my own mother was alive, but because I am an orphan they think they can abuse me as they please."