d."

Then she would wander round the room, examining and fingering
everything, and occasionally coming back with something in her hand to
tread on her mother's dress, and break in upon the ladies' conversation
with--"Mamma! Mamma! What's the good of keeping this old basin? It's
been broken and mended, and some of the pieces are quite loose now. I
can feel them:" or--addressing the lady of the house--"That's not a
real ottoman in the corner. It's a box covered with chintz. I know, for
I've looked."

Then her mamma would say, reprovingly, "My _dear_ Amelia!"

And perhaps the lady of the house would beg, "Don't play with that old
china, my love; for though it is mended, it is very valuable;" and her
mother would add, "My dear Amelia, you must not."

Sometimes the good lady said, "You _must_ not." Sometimes she
tried--"You must _not_" When both these failed, and Amelia was balancing
the china bowl on her finger-ends, her mamma would get flurried, and when
Amelia flurried her, she always rolled her r's, and emphasized her words,
so that it sounded thus:

"My dear-r-r-r-Ramelia! You must not."

At which Amelia would not so much as look round, till perhaps the bowl
slipped from her fingers, and was smashed into unmendable fragments.
Then her mamma would exclaim, "Oh, dear-r-r-r, oh, dear-r-Ramelia" and
the lady of the house would try to look as if it did not matter, and
when Amelia and her mother departed, would pick up the bits, and pour
out her complaints to her lady friends, most of whom had suffered many
such damages at the hands of this "very observing child."

When the good couple received their friends at home, there was no
escaping from Amelia. If it was a dinner-party, she came in with the
dessert, or perhaps sooner. She would take up her position near some
one, generally the person most deeply engaged in conversation, and
either lean heavily against him or her, or climb on to his or her knee,
without being invited. She would break in upon the most interesting
discussion with her own little childish affairs, in the following
style--"I've been out to-day. I walked to the town. I jumped across
three brooks. Can you jump? Papa gave me sixpence to-day. I am saving
up my money to be rich. You may cut me an orange; no, I'll take it to
Mr. Brown, he peels it with a spoon and turns the skin back. Mr. Brown!
Mr. Brown! Don't talk to Mamma, but peel me an orange, please. Mr.
Brown! I'm playing with your finger-glass."