keep her troublesome curls always just as they ought to be and her
ribbon always in place, yet she had accomplished this fairly well,
and Grandma said that she really deserved credit for it.

But to obey Grandma implicitly was harder still. Not that Marjorie
ever meant to disobey or ever did it wilfully, but she was very
apt to forget and, too, it seemed to be natural for her to get
into mischief. And as it was always some new sort of mischief,
which no one could have thought of forbidding, and as she was
always so sorry for it afterward, there was more or less
repentance and forgiveness going on all the time.

But, on the whole, she was improving, and Uncle Steve sometimes
said that he believed she would live to grow up without tumbling
off of something and breaking her neck, after all.

Grandma Sherwood found it far easier to forgive Marjorie's
unintentional mischief than her forgetting of explicit commands.

One command in particular had caused trouble all summer. There
were two front doors to Grandma's house and two halls. One of
these halls opened into the great drawing-room on one side and a
smaller reception room on the other, where callers were received.
The stairs in this hall were of polished wood and were kept in a
state of immaculate, mirror-like shininess by Jane, who took great
pride in this especial piece of work.

The other front door opened into a hall less pretentious. This
hall was between the drawingroom and the family library, and the
stairs here were covered with thick, soft carpet.