won't like you to draw their attention to it. Try and look gentle
and forgiving--they'll feel quite as miserable as you could wish
them to feel. The world has a beautiful frown of its own, and an
endless vocabulary of cold words--wouldn't it do if the little
sisters left it the monopoly of them?"

"Oh-h-h!" said Meg. Her cheeks were crimson, and all the dignity
had oozed out of her voice.

He buckled the strap round nothing with infinite care, and went on
again in a low tone:

"Suppose Pip did something very wrong some day, and the world flung
stones at him till he was bruised all over. And suppose feeling
very wretched, he came home to his sisters. And Meg, because
wickedness was abhorrent to her, threw a few more little stones,
so that the pain might teach him a lesson he could not forget.
And Judy, because he was her brother and in trouble, flung her arms
round him and encouraged him, and helped him to fight the world again,
and gave him never a hard word or look, thinking he had had plenty.
Which sister's influence would be greater, Miss Meg?"

Meg's little soft mouth, was quivering, her eyes were on the ground,
because the tears would have splashed out if she had lifted them.

"Oh-h-h!" she said again. "Oh, how very horrid I have been--oh-h-h!"

She covered her face with her hands, for one of her quickly gathered
tears was trembling on her lashes.