ma'am."

"Then I hope you will speak properly next time."

"One gets so tired of speaking properly!" said Maria.

"_You?_" said Clarissa, with a gentle intonation.

"I don't care!" said Maria, desperately. "People are as they are
brought up. My mother don't care for such fidgety notions. I speak to
please her, and that is enough."

"No, Maria, it is not enough," resumed Mrs. Candy. "Your mother loves
you, and so she is willing to overlook little things in you that she
_can_ overlook because you are her child; but when you are grown up,
you would wish to be liked by other nice people, wouldn't you? people
of education, and taste, and elegant habits; and they do not like to
have anything to do with people who 'poke their noses' into things, or
who say that they do."

"I'll keep in the kitchen then," said Maria, hastily.

The breakfast may be said to have ended here; for though a few more
mouthfuls were eaten, no more words were said. Mrs. Candy and her
daughter left the room and went up-stairs. Maria and Matilda began the
work of clearing the table.

"Ain't she too much!" Maria exclaimed.

"But, Maria," said her little sister, "I wish you _wouldn't_ say such
things."

"If I am going to be a kitchen maid," said Maria, "I may as well talk
kitchen maid."

"Oh, I don't think so, Maria!"

"I don't care!" said Maria. "I would rather vex aunt Candy than not;
and she _was_ vexed this morning. She kept it in pretty well; but she
was vexed."

"But, Maria, that isn't right, is it?"

"Nothing is right," said Maria; "and nothing is going to be, I guess,
while they are here."

"Then think, what would mamma do if they went away?"

"I wish I could go away, then!" said Maria, beginning to cry. "I can't
bear to live so! 'Why do you do so,' and 'why do you do _so;_' and
Clarissa sitting by with that little smile on her mouth, and lifting up
her eyes to look at you--it just makes me _mad_. There! It is a pity
Aunt Candy wasn't here to be shocked at American children."

"But, Maria," said Matilda with her eyes swimming too, "you know the
Lord Jesus has given us this work."

"No, I don't!" said Maria; "and what if He did?"

"Why, then, it would please Him--you know, Maria, it would please
Him--to have us do it just nicely and beautifully, and not like kitchen
maids, but like His children. You know we said we were ready to do any
work that he would give us."

"I didn't," said Maria, half crying, half pouting. "I did