They did not dream it had been burnt into my soul with
red-hot anguish.

I have always been glad, very glad, I was allowed to suffer so much,
and learn something of the preciousness of truth. It is a diamond with
a white light, children. There is no other gem so clear, so pure.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TANSY CHEESE.

You are not to suppose from this that I became a good girl the very
next day. No, nor the day after. I ceased from the wickedness of
telling lies, just as I had stopped pilfering sweetmeats. This was
all; but it was certainly better than nothing.

I was soon able to play once more, only I could not run as fast as
usual. How pleasant it was out of doors, after my long stay in the
house! The flowers and trees seemed glad to see me, and I knew the
hens and cows were, and old Deacon Pettibone, the horse. I resumed my
old business of hunting hens' nests, though it was some weeks before
I dared jump off the scaffold, and it seemed odd enough to come down
on the ladder.

"I'd twice rather have it be you that had cut your foot, Fel Allen,"
said I, "for you don't want to run and jump; and folks that don't want
to, might just as well have a lame foot as not."

Fel couldn't quite understand that, though it was as clear to _me_ as
A B C. And after all my suffering, she wouldn't own I was as
"delicate" as she. I didn't like that.

"You don't remember how many bad things have happened to me," said I,
waving my thimble-finger, which had lost its tip-end in the
corn-sheller.

"Well, Ned's going to give you a gold thimble to pay for that, and I
suppose you're glad it's cut off," said Fel, who had never met with
an accident in her life, and was naturally ashamed of not having a
single scar or bruise on her little white body, not so much as a wart
or pimple to show me. I could not help feeling my superiority
sometimes, for I had been cut and burnt, and smashed and scalded, and
bore the marks of it, too.

"Well, but you don't have so bad headaches as me," said Fel,
recovering her self-esteem. "Your mamma never has to put mustard
_pace_ on your feet, and squeeze up burdock leaves and tie 'em on your
head, now, does she?"

"I don' know but she did when I was a baby; I never heard her say,"
returned I, coolly. "Folks don't think much of headaches. Polly
Whiting has 'em so she can't but just see out of her eyes. But that
isn't like hurting a place on you so bad your mother doesn't dass do
it up! I guess you'd th