and I never can match it again. You careless, clumsy,
good-for-nothing creature!"

"Please, Selma," whispered her eldest sister.

"Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose; why don't you
speak to your servant?"

Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied herself that
no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then asked her
how this disaster had happened? For a serious disaster she felt it
was. Not only was the present loss annoying, but a servant with a
talent for crockery breaking would be a far too expensive luxury for
them to think of retaining. And she had been listening in the
solitude of the parlor to a long lecture from her always dissatisfied
younger sister, on the great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth's
"suiting."

"Come, now," seeing the girl hesitated, "tell me the plain truth. How
was it?"

"It was the cat," sobbed Elizabeth.

"What a barefaced falsehood." exclaimed Selina. "You wicked girl, how
could it possibly be the cat? Do you know that you are telling a lie,
and that lies are hateful, and that all liars go to--"

"Nonsense, hush!" interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; for Selina's
"tongue," the terror of her childhood, now merely annoyed her.
Selina's temper was a long understood household fact--they did not