"If you think it best," replied mamma; "but I fear it will do no good. I have already been to her three times."
"Well, perhaps I had better leave her with you, then. I hope this will be a good lesson to her."
After dinner, Mrs. Gray carried a plate full of pudding to Nelly, and offered to feed her with it; but the stubborn child refused to eat. She made up faces at her aunt, and said many naughty words, which I should not want any little boy or girl to hear.
The lady came out of her room looking very pale and anxious, and at last began to cry. She was quite discouraged, and thought she would write to her brother, and tell him she could do nothing with his child. But if I do so, she thought, Nelly will be ruined. If she grows up with such a bad temper, is so untruthful and selfish, she will be a trial to herself and to her parents; and what is more than that, she can never have the blessing of G.o.d. "I will not give up yet," she said, aloud. "I will try her a little longer."
She then went down stairs, and told Frankie he might go out doors and play with his wheel-barrow; but the little fellow said, "I want to stay with you, mamma. Nelly makes my head ache." Poor child, he did not feel like play while his cousin was so naughty.
It was almost time for tea, when the lady, having once more asked G.o.d to direct her, entered the little chamber where her niece was sitting.
Nelly was quiet now; but her lips stuck out with an ugly pout.
"My dear child," said the lady, sitting down near her, "it makes us all very unhappy to have you up here by yourself, when you might be playing and enjoying yourself with your cousins. When you came to live with us, we thought it was so pleasant to have a dear little girl running and dancing about the house! But now it seems sad because we know by your naughty temper you have not only offended us, but you have displeased G.o.d. I wish you would let me untie your hands, and see you my darling little Nelly once more."
"I"m sorry now," said Nelly, her lip quivering. "I will be good, aunty."
The tears ran down the little girl"s cheeks, but this time they were not angry tears.
Her aunt made haste to untie the towels, and took Nelly in her arms.
"I love you now," sobbed Nelly; "I love you dearly."
"And I love you, my dear, or I could not have kept you here so long,"
said her aunt, kissing her again and again. "I came a great many times to the door, and longed to take you from this great chair, and hear your happy voice once more; but I knew it would be wrong in me to do so until you were ready to say you were sorry, and to promise to be a good girl. You have offended G.o.d, my dear child. Shall I ask him to forgive you?"
"Yes, aunty."
Mrs. Gray then knelt with Nelly by the chair, and prayed G.o.d to forgive all her sins, and to help her to keep her new resolution to be good.
CHAPTER V.
TAKING MEDICINE.
AFTER tea Nelly had a fine romp with her cousins on the lawn. Margie and Ponto were there too; and papa and mamma sat on the front steps, laughing and enjoying their sport. As the children ran round and round, the lady saw that Nelly"s ap.r.o.n was unb.u.t.toned, and that it troubled her as she played. She called, "Nelly, come here a minute."
The little girl stopped at once, and then ran to her aunt. Before this, when any one called her, she would say, "I can"t come now;" or, "In a minute I will." The lady was very much pleased to see that the child obeyed promptly. When she had fastened the ap.r.o.n, Nelly clasped her arms about her aunt"s neck, and kissed her. Her uncle smiled, and said, "You look very happy now, Nelly; I wish your mamma could see your rosy cheeks."
"Come, Nelly, it"s your turn now," shouted Willie from the lawn.
A few days after this, Mrs. Gray sat busily sewing, while Frankie made a barn with his blocks, in which to put up the pedler"s cart, and Nelly was undressing her doll. The sleeve did not come off easily, and as she pulled it roughly it tore. The little girl was angry, and began to cry.
"What is the matter?" asked her aunt.
"Dolly"s dress is ugly, and it"s all torn."
"Should you like to have a needle, and mend it, my dear?"
"O, yes, aunty."
"May I sew some too?" asked Frankie.
"Yes, darling, you may mend this stocking." She then threaded a needle for the little girl, and showed her how to put the st.i.tches through, and afterwards gave Frankie a darning needle with some yarn. He had often sewed before, and he liked the business very much. There was no knot in the thread, and so he pulled it through and through. But he thought it was sewing for all that.
Nelly sat steadily at her work for a minute; but at last she threw it on the floor, and said, "I hate sewing, it"s so hard."
"Let me see it, dear," said aunty.
Nelly picked it up, and put it into her hand.
She laughed when she looked at it, and Nelly laughed too; and then Frankie said, "O, what funny sewing!"
"I"ll baste you some easier work," said her aunt; "and you shall have a little thimble to put on your finger. Then you will like to sew."
Nelly had behaved much better since she was punished, so that her uncle, aunt, and cousins loved her better than ever. Still there were many things in which they hoped she would improve.
One day her aunt found her sitting on the piazza alone, eating something, and as soon as she saw some one coming, she put it hastily in her pocket. It was not more than an hour before she complained of a bad pain in her stomach.
"What have you been eating, my dear?" asked her aunt.
"Nothing," said Nelly.
"Are you sure?" and the lady looked earnestly in her face.
"Yes, I am very sure," answered Nelly.
Mrs. Gray sent Sally for some warm peppermint water, and then laid the child on the lounge.
For some time she lay quite still, sucking her finger; but when her aunt glanced toward her to see if she were asleep, she noticed that Nelly looked very pale about the mouth; and presently she jumped up, and carried her to the closet, where she threw up a great quant.i.ty of raisins, which she had stolen from her aunt"s box.
She continued very sick all that night, and in the morning the doctor came, and said she must take a large dose of castor oil.
The sight of oil always made the lady very sick, and so her uncle said he would give it to her. He poured it out, and mixed it with a little hot milk, and held it to her lips. But she would not take it. He tried to persuade her, promised her a ride, told her she would be very sick if she did not obey the doctor, but all was of no use. She shut her teeth, and would not touch it.
Then Sally tried her skill. "I"ll make your great dolly a new dress,"
she said; "come, now, be a good girl, and then I"ll tell you how Frankie took his medicine." It was all in vain; Nelly still shook her head, and refused to obey.
Mrs. Gray then took the child in her lap, and spread a large cloth under her chin, at the same time telling Sally to bring a cup of blackberry jelly from the store closet. "Now, my little Nelly," she said, "you must take this to make you well. If you will open your mouth and swallow it all down like a good girl, I will give you some nice jelly to take the taste out, for it is very bad. But if you don"t take it before I count three, I shall hold you and force it down your throat."
Then she began to count,--"one, two,"--but before she could say three, Nelly caught the spoon and swallowed the medicine, and then took some jelly so quickly, that she hardly tasted the oil.
"That was a right good girl," said her uncle. "I couldn"t have taken it any better myself."
When Nelly was well, her aunt kindly talked with her of the great sin which she had committed. "You have done just as naughty Moses did," she said. "First, you stole the raisins, as he stole the orange; and then you told a wicked lie to hide it from me, as he did to hide his sin from his mother." Then she told Nelly, "G.o.d hears all we say, and sees all we do. We can hide nothing from him; and he says in his holy book, "liars shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.""
Nelly cried; and promised over and over again to be a good girl, and she really tried to improve. She saw how happy her cousins were, and how every body loved them, and she said to herself, "I mean to try to be just as good as I can."