"There! now see what you have done! You two make more work than you
do; and just see how you have stood the broom in the corner, instead
of hanging it up, as I have told you a hundred times to do. It is
more trouble to teach you than it is to do things myself. I wonder if
you have just got through sweeping; such slow poking works, I could
have done it twice over by this time. I don't see why I should be so
tormented; other people have girls that amount to something." Mrs.
Murray, down in her heart, believed there were no girls in all the
kingdom like hers. Florence was accustomed to this sort of talk, and
yet it hurt her sensitive, affectionate nature every time. The blue
eyes took on no indignant light; instead, they filled with tears,
which irritated her mother still more, and she said, with increased
sharpness:

"There, go away. You are made of too fine stuff for common purposes;
getting so touchy that not a word can be said to you."

Counting time by her mother's calendar, Florence had been a long time
doing a little, but her nature was different from her mother's, all
her movements were gentle. She had been reverently following her
mother's directions. Her untiring patience ferreted dust out of every
little corner where it had lodged in the furniture; she had mounted
the step-ladder and dusted the pictures, had cleaned and polished all
the little ornaments. True, she lingered a moment over a book of
engravings, and to kiss a little statuette of "Prayer," but she
thought she had done it all so nicely, and a little word of praise
would have made her so happy. It was hard, when she had done her
best, to have only fault-findings.