was."

"Oh, but----"

"Yes, say it."

"Please, Sarah."

"Say it. Otherwise I'll be punished too. Mind, if you don't say it, I
shall know."

There was the horrible threat that effected so much. Mary began soon to
believe that Sarah was never absent from her, that she attended her,
invisibly, her little dark face peering over Mary's shoulder, and when
Mary was in bed at night, the lights out, and only shadows on the walls,
Sarah was certainly there, her mocking eyes on Mary's face, her voice
whispering things in Mary's ears.

Sarah, Mary very soon discovered, believed in nothing, and knew
everything. This horrible combination, naturally, affected Mary, who
believed in everything and knew nothing.

"Why should we obey our mothers?" said Sarah. "We're as good as they
are."

"Oh, _no_," said Mary, in a voice shocked to a strangled whisper.
Nevertheless, she began, a little, to despise her confused parents.
There came a day when Mary told a very large lie indeed; she said that
she had brushed her teeth when she had not, and she told this lie quite
unprompted by Sarah. She was more and more miserable as the days passed.