'Aunts, and uncles, and grandmothers,' thinks I to myself. 'O what a
stupid old lot they must have been to have set such store by all
this gimcrackery! Oh, if only a bull or something could get in here
for five minutes and smash every precious--oh, my cats alive!'

I don't know how I did it, but just as I was saying that about the
bull, the big bowl slipped from my hands and broke in three pieces
on the floor at my feet, and at the same moment I heard aunt thump,
thump, thumping with the heel of her boot on the floor for me to go
up and tell her what I had broken. I tell you I wished from my heart
at that moment that it was me that had had the quinsy instead of
Sarah.

I was so knocked all of a heap that I couldn't move, and the boot
went on thump, thump, thumping overhead. I had to go, but I was
flustered to that degree that as I went up the stairs I couldn't for
the life of me think what I should say.

Aunt was sitting up in bed, and she shook her fist at me when I went
in.

'Out with it!' she said. 'Speak the truth. Which of them is it? The
yallar china dish, or the big teapot, or the Wedgwood tobaccojar
that belonged to your grandfather?'

And then all in a minute I knew what to say. The words seemed to be
put into my mouth, like they were into the prophets of old.

'Lord, aunt!' I said, 'you give me quite a turn, battering on the
floor that way. What do you want? What is it?'

'What have you broken, you wicked, heartless girl? Out with it,
quick!'

'Broken?' I says. 'Well, I hope you won't mind much, aunt, but I
have had a misfortune with the little cracked pie-dish that the
potatopie was baked in; but I can easy get you another down at
Wilkins.'

Aunt fell back on her pillows with a sort of groan.

'Thank them as be!' she said, and then she sat up again, bolt
upright all in a minute.

'You fetch me the pieces,' she says, short and sharp.

I hope it isn't boastful to say that I don't think many girls would
have had the sense to bring up that dish in their apron and to break
it on their knee as they came up the stairs, and take it in and show
it to her.

'Don't say another word about it,' says my aunt, as kind and hearty
as you please.

Things not being as bad as she expected, it made her quite willing
to put up with things being a bit worse than they had been five
minutes before. I've often noticed it is this way with people.

'You're a good girl, Jane,' she says, 'a very good girl, and I