"Emilie, I cannot help saying, and you know yourself, though you call
her kind, that mamma is cross, very cross sometimes. Yes, I know she is
very fond of me and all that, but still she _is_ cross, and it is no
use denying it. Oh, dear, I wish I was you. You never seem to have
anything to put you out. I never see you look as if you had been crying
or vexed, but I have so many many things to vex me at home."

Emilie smiled. "As to my having nothing to put me out, you may be right,
and you may be wrong, dear. There is never any excuse for being what you
call _put out_, by which I understand cross and pettish, but I am rather
amused, too, at your fixing on a daily governess, as a person the least
likely in the world to have trials of temper and patience." "Yes, I dare
say I vex you sometimes, but"--"Well, not to speak of you, dear, whom I
love very much, though you are not perfect, I have other pupils, and do
you suppose, that amongst so many as I have to teach at Miss Humphrey's
school, for instance, there is not one self-willed, not one impertinent,
not one idle, not one dull scholar? My dear, there never was a person,
you may be sure of that, who had nothing to be tried, or, as you say,
put out with. But not to talk of my troubles, and I have not many I will
confess, except that great one, Edith, which, may you be many years
before you know, (the loss of a father;) not to talk of that, what are
your troubles? Your mamma is cross sometimes, that is to say, she does
not always give you all you ask for, crosses you now and then, is that
all?"

"Oh no Emilie, there are Mary and Ellinor, they never seem to like me to
be with them, they are so full of their own plans and secrets. Whenever
I go into the room, there is such a hush and mystery. The fact is, they
treat me like a baby. Oh, it is a great misfortune to be the youngest