who had
listened with darkening face to the rapidly told story:

"She ought to be thoroughly _whipped_, the careless little goose!
Mother, if you don't punish her now, I never would again."

Then Julia's tearful sorrow blazed into sudden anger: "I _oughtn't_ to
be whipped; you're an ugly, mean sister to say so. I tumbled down and
hurt my arm _dreadfully_, trying to catch your old _hateful_ letter;
and you're just as mean as you can be!"

Between tears, and loud tones, and Sadie's laughter, Julia had managed
to burst forth these angry sentences before her mother's voice reached
her; when it did, she was silenced.

"Julia, I am _astonished_! Is that the way to speak to your sister?
Go up to my room directly; and, when you have put on dry clothes, sit
down there, and stay until you are ready to tell Ester that you are
sorry, and ask her to forgive you."

"_Really_, mother," Sadie said, as the little girl went stamping up
the stairs, her face buried in her muddy handkerchief, "I'm not sure
but you have made a mistake, and Ester is the one to be sent to her
room until she can behave better. I don't pretend to be _good_ myself;
but I must say it seems ridiculous to speak in the way she did to a
sorry, frightened child. I never saw a more woeful figure in my life;"
and Sadie laughed again at the recollection.

"Yes," said Ester, "you uphold her in all sorts of mischief and
insolence; that is the reason she is so troublesome to manage."

Mrs. Ried looked distressed. "Don't, Ester," she said; "don't speak
in that loud, sharp tone. Sadie, you should not encourage Julia in
speaking improperly to her sister. I think myself that Ester was hard
with her. The poor child did not mean any harm; but she must not be
rude to anybody."

"Oh, yes," Ester said, speaking bitterly, "of course _I_ am the one to
blame; I always _am_. No one in this house ever does any thing wrong
except _me_."

Mrs. Ried sighed heavily, and Sadie turned away and ran up stairs,
humming:

"Oh, would I were a buttercup,
A blossom in the meadow."

And Julia, in her mother's room, exchanged her wet and muddy garments
for clean ones, and _cried_; washed her face in the clear, pure water
until it was fresh and clean, and cried again, louder and harder; her
heart was all bruised and bleeding. She had not meant to be careless.
She had been carefully dressed that morning to spend the long, bright
Saturday with Vesta Griswold. She had intended to go swift