ples, missy. Why, fo' goodness' sake,
don' yo' he'p yo'se'f?"

But I did not want to help myself.
I wanted to be helped -- not because I
was lazy, but because I wanted to be
adored. I was really a sort of fairy
princess, -- misplaced, of course, in a
stupid republic, -- and I wanted life con-
ducted on a fairy-princess basis. It was
a game I wished to play, but it was one
I could not play alone, and not a soul
could I find who seemed inclined to play
it with me.

Well, things went from bad to worse.
I decided that if mother no longer loved
me, I would no longer tell her things.
So I did not. I got a hundred in spell-
ing for twelve days running, and did
not tell her! I broke Edna Grantham's
mother's water-pitcher, and kept the
fact a secret. The secret was, indeed,
as sharp-edged as the pieces of the
broken pitcher had been; I cried under
the bedclothes, thinking how sorry Mrs.
Grantham had been, and that mother
really ought to know. Only what was
the use? I no longer looked to her to
help me out of my troubles.