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alas!--also its undoubted drawbacks. She, who hated lessons, must now try to read; she must also try to write, and must make valiant efforts to spell. Above and beyond all these things, she had to do one yet harder--she had to sit mute as a mouse for a couple of hours daily, with her hands neatly folded in her lap; and by-and-by she had to struggle with her clumsy little fingers to make hideous noises on the cracked old piano. These things were not agreeable to the wild child, and so uncomfortable and restrained had she felt during the first morning's lessons that she almost resolved to humble her pride and return to the nursery. But the thought of her sisters' withering, sarcastic remarks, and of nurse's bitterly cold reception, and nurse's words, "I told you so," being repeated for ever in her ears, was too much for Penelope, and she determined to give a further trial to the schoolroom life. Now it occurred to her that a moment of triumph was before her. In the old days she had secretly adored Nancy King, for Nancy had given her more than one lollypop; but when Nancy asked what the nursery child was doing with the schoolroom folk, and showed that she did not appreciate Penelope's society, the little girl's heart became full of anger. "I'll tell about her. I'll get her into trouble. I'll get them all into trouble," she thought. She ran into the shrubbery, and stood there thinking for a time. She was a queer-looking little figure as she stood thus in her short holland overall, her stout bare legs, brown as berries, slightly apart, her head thrown back, her hair awry, a smudge on her cheek, her black eyes twinkling. "I will do it," she said to herself. "Aunt Sophy shall find out that I am the good one of the family." Penelope ran wildly across the shrubbery, invaded the kitchen-garden, invaded the yard, and presently invaded the house. She found Miss Sophia sitting by her writing-table. Miss Sophia had a headache; teaching was not her vocation. She had worked harder that day than ever in her life before, and she had a great many letters to write. It was therefore a very busy and a slightly cross person who turned round and faced Penelope. "Don't slam the door, Penelope," she said; "and don't run into the room in that breathless sort of way." "Well, I thought you ought for to know. I done it 'cos of you." "'I did it because of you,' you should say." "I did it because of you. I am very fond of you, aun
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