LITTLE RIE
consideration, that the mistress felt she could not take her opinion at all.
'Please, ma'am, she will speak out if she's not afraid,' Sally would say when little Rie had cried herself to sleep, after being punished for some childish deceit.
'Not afraid!' the mistress would repeat. 'How you talk, Sally! I punish her to make her afraid of doing anything else but speak out.'
'But, ma'am, consider her bringing up,' said Sally, 'and don't look for too much at first.'
'Too much!' repeated the mistress; 'don't I give her everything, and haven't I a right to look for obedience and truth in return?'
'Surely,' said Sally, 'and I hope you'll have them, ma'am.'
'I hope so,' replied the mistress; but the very next day little Rie got into trouble again, for she was told to hold out her pinafore while the mistress counted apples into it for a pudding; the pinafore was not half full when the mistress was called away, and then little Rie, left alone, looking at all the bright, rosy apples, lying in rows on the low shelf, found the temptation too great for her, and bit one of them, which she hastily returned to its place. When the mistress came back and found the little culprit, with cheeks suffused with crimson, and head hanging down, she easily discovered what had happened; and then, in spite of her promises that she would be good, she was summarily punished, and put to bed.
'She is but a child,' said Sally.
