temperament, and my grandmother, setting up her spectacles, exclaimed
commandingly: "Caroline, how dare you stand pouting there? Did you not
hear your mother, naughty girl? Leave the room--this instant?"

The child stood a moment almost transfixed with surprise; but as she saw
my grandmother preparing to advance upon her--her ample skirts and
portly person somewhat resembling a ship under full sail--she made
rather an abrupt retreat; discomposing the nerves of a small
nursery-maid, whom she encountered in the passage, to such a degree
that, as the girl expressed it, "she was took all of a sudden."

I had given a quick, convulsive start as the first tones fell upon my
ear, and now sat bending over my sewing like a chidden child, almost
afraid to look up. I was one of those unlucky mortals who bear the blame
of everything wrong they witness; and having, in tender infancy, been
suddenly seized upon in Sunday school by the superintendent, and placed
in a conspicuous situation of disgrace for looking at a companion who
was performing some strange antic, but who possessed one of those
india-rubber faces that, after twisting themselves into all possible, or
rather impossible shapes, immediately become straight the moment any
one observes them--having, I say, met with this mortifying exposure, it
gave me a shock which I have not to this day recovered; and I cannot now
see any one start up hastily in pursuit of another without fancying
myself the culprit, and trembling accordingly. This sudden movement,
therefore, of my grandmother's threw me into an alarming state of
terror, and, quite still and subdued, I sat industriously stitching, all
the morning after.

"Dear me!" said my mother with a sigh, "how much better you make them
mind than I can."