aside, and cried and laughed over me alternately, while she almost
crushed me with the violence of her affection. Before I was well seated,
Fred spied out the bag of hazel-nuts; and a vigorous sound of cracking
informed me that the work of devastation had already commenced.

How they all stared at my ear-rings! But mamma turned pale and burst
into tears; while I stood still, feeling very uncomfortable, and yet not
being exactly aware of the manner in which I had displeased her. Aunt
Henshaw, however, with a minute accuracy that struck me as being
painfully correct, related every circumstance connected with that
unfortunate business, from her finding me extended on the bed to the
time when the rings were placed in my ears.

"Oh Amy! how could you!" exclaimed my mother; "I have always despised
the barbarous practice of making holes in the flesh for the sake of
ornament," she continued, "but to have them pierced by an ignorant
colored woman! Come here, child, and let me look at your ears. They are
completely spoiled!" she exclaimed, "the holes are one-sided, and close
to the very bone! What is to be done?"

Aunt Henshaw suggested that it would be better to let those grow up, and
have others made in the right place; but I still retained a vivid
recollection of that scene of torture, and did not therefore feel
willing to have it repeated. But the ear-rings must come out--they were
no ornament all one-sided; so they were laid away in cotton, while I had
the pleasure of reflecting on the suffering I had endured for nothing.
Being thus brought down at the very commencement of my attempt to be
sensible, and finding it less trouble to resume my natural character, I
concluded to disregard Sylvia's well-meant advice. I was very poor at
keeping a secret; so one by one all the scrapes in which I had figured