dn't study;" she wasn't allowed to play
with dolls, because "it was silly;" she mustn't go visiting, because
"it wasn't proper;" she mustn't have a playmate come to see her,
because "it made a disturbance;" she couldn't have a kitten, because
"animals were a nuisance;" she mustn't talk to her grandmother, because
"little girls must be seen and not heard." So she sat there, like a
little automaton, and watched the clock tick, and counted the times her
grandmother put on and took off her spectacles, and thought of her
mother and little sister till she bit her finger nails so that they
bled.

Once in a great while, when Nettie had worried her self nearly sick,
she got leave to go and see her mother. Then her grandmother always put
on her worst clothes, to try to make her ashamed to go, and when she
found that Nettie didn't care for her clothes, if she could only see
her mother, she scolded and fretted and worried her, and gave her so
many charges to come home at a particular hour, else she should be
punished, that poor Nettie didn't enjoy her visit at all, but would
start and turn pale every time she heard a clock strike, and get so
nervous as to bring on a bad headache; and then, when she got home, the
old lady would say that it was just like her mother to make her sick,
and that she shouldn't go again.

Perhaps you'll ask if Nettie's mother never went to see her. You know
it costs money to go in the cars, and Nettie's mother had no money,
though she tried hard to earn it. Once in a while she could save up
cents enough to carry her there; but she always had to carry something
in her pocket for little Ida and herself to eat, for the old lady
wouldn't offer them even a glass of water, because she didn't want them
to come and see Nettie.

When they got there poor little Nettie would meet them at the door,
with a troubled, frightened look upon her face; and without speaking a
word, would lead them through the entry by the hand into her own little
room; then she'd close the door, and after looking timidly about the
room, jump into her mother's lap and kiss her hands and face, and cry
and laugh, and hug little Ida; and Ida and her mother would cry too,
and then Nettie would ask, sobbing, "if her mother hadn't earned money
enough yet to take her away," and say that she'd rather starve with her
mother, than live there, she was so wretched. And Nettie's mother would
kiss her, and soothe her, and tell her how late she sat up toi