I WAS sitting in my room one morning, feeling all "out of sorts"
about something or other, when an orphan child, whom I had taken to
raise, came in with a broken tumbler in her hand, and said, while
her young face was pale, and her little lip quivered,--

"See, Mrs. Graham! I went to take this tumbler from the dresser to
get Anna a drink of water, and I let it fall."

I was in a fretful humour before the child came in, and her
appearance, with the broken tumbler in her hand, did not tend to
help me to a better state of mind. She was suffering a good deal of
pain in consequence of the accident, and needed a kind word to quiet
the disturbed beatings of her heart. But she had come to me in an
unfortunate moment.

"You are a careless little girl!" said I, severely, taking the
fragments of glass from her trembling hands. "A very careless little
girl, and I am displeased with you!"

I said no more; but my countenance expressed even stronger rebuke
than my words. The child lingered near me for, a few moments, and
then shrunk away from the room. I was sorry, in a moment, that I had
permitted myself to speak unkindly to the little girl; for there was
no need of my doing so; and, moreover, she had taken my words, as I
could see, deeply to heart. I had made her unhappy without a cause.
The breaking of the tumbler was an accident likely to happen to any
one and the child evidently felt bad enough about what had occurred,