go away. I will wash them myself."

Every nerve in the girl's body fairly quivered. Her mother had
touched her on a tender point. She had been drilled by her
music-teacher for a long time on the high notes of a difficult piece
of music, and she had just succeeded in trilling it out to her own
satisfaction and delight, when she was startled by her mother's
voice. Poor Margaret! She had a hot temper, and when the severe
reprimand for her carelessness was added, she felt so angry and
disgraced that she would have said many a word to repent of, but
happily she could not control her voice to speak. Every time she
attempted it, a choking sob stood right in the doorway, and would not
let the wicked words out.

Mrs. Murray was a pattern housekeeper, a model of neatness.
Everything in her house shone, from the parlour windows to the
kitchen stove. Her cake was always light, her bread sweet. No table
could compare with hers for delicious variety. Her housekeeping was a
fine art, before which everything else was made to bow. Her parlour
was made most attractive in all its appointments, and everything that
goes to make a pleasant home was lavishly supplied by her husband;
yet a more uncomfortable family it would be hard to find.

The parlour was kept closed and dark, except on rare occasion. Flies,
and dust, and mud were Mrs. Murray's avowed enemies. To overcome them
was the chief end of her life; to this end she tortured her husband,
and son, and daughters. Summer and winter she diligently pursued
them, and many a tempest was evolved in that house from a source no
greater than a muddy foot-print, or stray fly or two, for in summer
the house was enclosed in wire screens, and heedless people were for
ever leaving them open.

Economy, too, another most desirable virtue, was in this home made to
appear almost a vice. She would not let the sunshine in, lest it
would fade the carpet. She made her room dingy and unpleasant in the
evening, to save gas. She would not make a fire in the parlour in the
winter, because it wasted coal. She would not open it in summer
because dust ruined the furniture. To make matters worse, Mrs. Murray
was a woman made principally of nerves. She was a constitutional
fretter. It must be said in her justification that she came of a
nervous race. There are different kinds of nervous people; this
family did not belong to that limp class who start with affright at
every noise, or faint at sight of a spider. T