ny things anywhere, she did not
wish for many things, and was therefore neither covetous nor avaricious.

She played with the toys her father made her, and thought them the most
wonderful things in the world--windmills, and little crooks, and
water-wheels, and sometimes lambs made all of wool, and dolls made out
of the leg-bones of sheep, which her mother dressed for her; and of
such playthings she was never tired. Sometimes, however, she preferred
playing with stones, which were plentiful, and flowers, which were few,
or the brooks that ran down the hill, of which, although they were
many, she could only play with one at a time, and that, indeed,
troubled her a little--or live lambs that were not all wool, or the
sheep-dogs, which were very friendly with her, and the best of
playfellows, as she thought, for she had no human ones to compare them
with. Neither was she greedy after nice things, but content, as well
she might be, with the homely food provided for her. Nor was she by
nature particularly self-willed or disobedient; she generally did what
her father and mother wished, and believed what they told her. But by
degrees they had spoiled her; and this was the way: they were so proud
of her that they always repeated every thing she said, and told every
thing she did, even when she was present; and so full of admiration of
their child were they, that they wondered and laughed at and praised
things in her which in another child would never have struck them as
the least remarkable, and some things even which would in another have
disgusted them altogether. Impertinent and rude things done by THEIR
child they thought SO clever! laughing at them as something quite
marvellous; her commonplace speeches were said over again as if they
had been the finest poetry; and the pretty ways which every moderately
good child has were extolled as if the result of her excellent taste,
and the choice of her judgment and will. They would even say sometimes
that she ought not to hear her own praises for fear it should make her
vain, and then whisper them behind their hands, but so loud that she
could not fail to hear every word. The consequence was that she soon
came to believe--so soon, that she could not recall the time when she
did not believe, as the most absolute fact in the universe, that she
was SOMEBODY; that is, she became most immoderately conceited.

Now as the least atom of conceit is a thing to be ashamed of, you may
fancy w