she tormented her
mother's friends as much as ever.

Now although Amelia's mamma's acquaintances were too polite to complain
before her face, they made up for it by what they said behind her back.
In allusion to the poor lady's ineffectual remonstrances, one gentleman
said that the more mischief Amelia did, the dearer she seemed to grow
to her mother. And somebody else replied that however dear she might be
as a daughter, she was certainly a very _dear_ friend, and proposed
that they should send in a bill for all the damages she had done in the
course of the year, as a round robin to her parents at Christmas. From
which it may be seen that Amelia was not popular with her parents'
friends, as (to do grown-up people justice) good children almost
invariably are.

If she was not a favourite in the drawing-room, she was still less so
in the nursery, where, besides all the hardships naturally belonging to
attendance on a spoilt child, the poor Nurse was kept, as she said, "on
the continual go" by Amelia's reckless destruction of her clothes. It
was not fair wear and tear, it was not an occasional fall in the mire,
or an accidental rent or two during a game at "Hunt the Hare," but it
was constant wilful destruction, which Nurse had to repair as best she
might. No entreaties would induce Amelia to "take care" of anything.
She walked obstinately on the muddy side of the road when Nurse pointed
out the clean parts, kicking up the dirt with her feet; if she climbed
a wall she never tried to free her dress if it had caught; on she
rushed, and half a skirt might be left behind for any care she had in
the matter. "They must be mended," or "They must be washed," was all
she thought about it.

"You seem to think things clean and mend themselves, Miss Amelia," said
poor Nurse one day.

"No, I don't," said Amelia, rudely. "I think you do them; what are you
here for?"

But though she spoke in this insolent and unlady-like fashion, Amelia
really did not realize what the tasks were which her carelessness
imposed on other people. When every hour of Nurse's day had been spent
in struggling to keep her wilful young lady regularly fed, decently
dressed, and moderately well behaved (except, indeed, those hours when
her mother was fighting the same battle down-stairs); and when at last,
after the hardest struggle of all, she had been got to bed not more
than two hours later than her appointed time, even then there was no
rest for Nurse. A