exclaiming: "Oh Sylvia! I cannot have the other one bored! It will kill
me!"

"Well, I wouldn't if I was you, Miss Amy," said she, "cos you can hang
both rings in one ear, you know--and that'll look real beautiful, won't
it, Holly?"

Holly burst into a loud fit of laughter, and through the effects of
ridicule, I submitted a second time to the infliction. But it was
impossible to endure the suffering any longer; the color gradually
faded from my face, and just as Sylvia concluded, she found that I had
fainted. The two were very much frightened, and after almost drowning me
with water, they lifted me up and carried me to my own bed. Aunt Henshaw
soon came home, and her horror at my situation was only equalled by her
astonishment. Sylvia did not tell her the cause of my sudden illness;
but she soon discovered it by a glance at my ears which were much
inflamed and swollen, having been pierced in a very bungling manner.
Sylvia received such a severe reprimand that she was almost angry enough
to leave on the spot; but she had only erred through ignorance, and I
succeeded at length in reconciling her mistress.

"But, my dear Amy," said the kind old lady, as she sat down beside me,
"Why is it that you are always getting into some trouble if left to
yourself for ever so short a time? You cannot tell the pain it gives me.
Why, an account of your various scrapes since you have been here would
almost fill a book."

What could I reply? It was a natural and most unfortunate propensity
which displayed itself everywhere; as well with Mammy in the precincts
of the nursery, as when roaming about at Aunt Henshaw's.