u never seem to have
anything to put you out. I never see you look as if you had been crying
or vexed, but I have so many many things to vex me at home."

Emilie smiled. "As to my having nothing to put me out, you may be right,
and you may be wrong, dear. There is never any excuse for being what you
call _put out_, by which I understand cross and pettish, but I am rather
amused, too, at your fixing on a daily governess, as a person the least
likely in the world to have trials of temper and patience." "Yes, I dare
say I vex you sometimes, but"--"Well, not to speak of you, dear, whom I
love very much, though you are not perfect, I have other pupils, and do
you suppose, that amongst so many as I have to teach at Miss Humphrey's
school, for instance, there is not one self-willed, not one impertinent,
not one idle, not one dull scholar? My dear, there never was a person,
you may be sure of that, who had nothing to be tried, or, as you say,
put out with. But not to talk of my troubles, and I have not many I will
confess, except that great one, Edith, which, may you be many years
before you know, (the loss of a father;) not to talk of that, what are
your troubles? Your mamma is cross sometimes, that is to say, she does
not always give you all you ask for, crosses you now and then, is that
all?"

"Oh no Emilie, there are Mary and Ellinor, they never seem to like me to
be with them, they are so full of their own plans and secrets. Whenever
I go into the room, there is such a hush and mystery. The fact is, they
treat me like a baby. Oh, it is a great misfortune to be the youngest
child! but of all my troubles, Fred is the greatest. John teases me
sometimes, but he is nothing to Fred. Emilie, you don't know what that
boy is; but you will see, when you come to stay with me in the holidays,
and you shall say then if you think I have nothing to put me out."

The very recollection of her wrongs appeared to irritate the little
lady, and she put on a pout, which made her look anything but kind and
amiable.

The primroses which she had so much desired, were not quite to her mind,
they were not nearly so fine as those that John and Fred had brought
home. Now she was tired of the dusty road, and she would go home by the
beach. So saying, Edith turned resolutely towards a stile, which led
across some fields to the sea shore, and not all Emilie's entreaties
could divert her from her purpose.

"Edith, dear! we shall be late, very late! a