"Mother, will you never make allowance for my flowers? They depend upon
the weather, and they must have things accordingly."

"Very well; let them think about what they want next, while you sit down
a while and talk with me."

The girl was vexed; for to listen to a lecture, already manifest in
her mother's eyes, was a far less agreeable job than gardening. And the
lecture would have done as well by candle-light, which seldom can be
said of any gardening. However, she took off her hat, and sat down,
without the least sign of impatience, and without any token of guilt, as
her mother saw, and yet stupidly proceeded just the same.

"Mary," she began, with a gaze of stern discretion, which the girl met
steadfastly and pleasantly, "you know that I am your own mother, and
bound to look after you well, while you are so very young; for though
you are sensible some ways, Mary, in years and in experience what are
you but a child? Of the traps of the world and the wickedness of people
you can have no knowledge. You always think the best of everybody; which
is a very proper thing to do, and what I have always brought you up to,
and never would dream of discouraging. And with such examples as your
father and your mother, you must be perverse to do otherwise. Still,
it is my duty to warn you, Mary--and you are getting old enough to want
it--that the world is not made up of fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, and good uncles. There are always bad folk who go prowling
about like wolves in--wolves in--what is it--"

"Sheep's clothing," the maiden suggested, with a smile, and then dropped
her eyes maliciously.

"How dare you be pert, miss, correcting your own mother? Do I ever
catch you reading of your Bible? But you seem to know so much about it,
perhaps you have met some of them?"

"How can I tell, mother, when you won't tell me?"

"I tell you, indeed! It is your place to tell me, I think. And what is
more, I insist at once upon knowing all about it. What makes you go
on in the way that you are doing? Do you take me for a drumledore,
you foolish child? On Tuesday afternoon I saw you sewing with a double
thread. Your father had potato-eyes upon his plate on Sunday; and which
way did I see you trying to hang up a dish-cover? But that is nothing;
fifty things you go wandering about in; and always out, on some
pretense, as if the roof you were born under was not big enough for
you. And then your eyes--I have seen your eyes fla