went away for a day, she seemed indeed to Sara quite desperately
perfect. But on ordinary days Sara was darkly aware, in the clearest
part of her mind--the upper right-hand corner near the window--that
her mother, with all her charm, really did need to be remoulded nearer
to her heart's desire.

She was especially clear about this on the frequent occasions when she
would come into the room where her mother was sitting, and plump down
upon a chair with a heart-rending sigh, and say, "I wish I had
somebody to play with!"

For then her dear but most contrary mother would glance up from her
book or her darning and remark, with a calm smile,

"When I was a little girl--"

"Ah!"

"I used to go inside my head and play."

And Sara would answer with a poor, vindictive satisfaction, "There's
nothing in my head to play with!"

And her kind-hearted mother would snip off her thread and say gently,
in a tone of polite regret, "Poor little girl!"

Then Sara would gnash the little milk-teeth of her mind and have awful
thoughts. The worst she ever had came one day when Mother, who had
already filled about fourteen pages of paper with nothing in the world
but words, acted that way again. And just as she said, "Poor little