.

Carrie Fraser was a great trouble to her mother, because she was always
wishing for something she had not got.

"The other girls always have things that I don't," she complained to her
mother. Her mother tried to explain to Carrie that she had a great many
things the other girls didn't have.

"But they are not always wishing for my things, just as I wish for
theirs."

"That is because they are not such 'teasers' as you are," her mother
would reply. "You do not hear them from morning till night teasing for
things they have not got."

Another thing in Carrie troubled her mother very much. She used a
great many extravagant phrases. She was not satisfied with saying even
"perfectly lovely," "splendid," "excruciatingly jolly." Her mother might
have permitted these terms, and was used to hearing the other girls use
them; but Carrie got hold of the strangest expressions and phrases, I am
afraid to put them into this story; for every boy and girl is perhaps
already too familiar with such, and I might only spread the use of them.

I will mention that "bang-up" and "bumptious," and that class of
expressions were her favorites, and the best-educated boy or girl will
be able to imagine the rest. This story will show how a careless use of
words brought Carrie to grief, and taught her a severe lesson.

One day, as usual, she had been complaining, and wishing she could have
everything she wanted. Her mother said: "You remember the old story of
the old couple who had their three wishes granted, and how they never
got any good from it."

"But that was because they acted like such geese," exclaimed Carrie. "I
could never have been so elephantinely idiotic! First, they wasted one
wish, for a black pudding."

"That is a sausage," said her mother.

"Yes, they asked for a common, every-day sausage to come down the
chimney; then they got into a fight, and wished it would settle on one
of their noses; and then they had to waste their last wish, by wishing
it off again! It is too bad to have such luck come to such out-and-out
idiots."

Mrs. Fraser was just setting out for the village street, to order the
dinner. The Governor was expected to pass through the place, and was to
be met at the Town Hall. Jimmy, the only son in the family, had gone off
to see the show.

"Now, if he were a real, genuine governor," said Carrie, "like a prince
in a fairytale, you would go and beseech him to grant your wishes. You
would fall on your