hair covered her forehead
and partly hid her eyes; her skin was red and tanned with exposure, and
her rather wide lips drooped at the corners with an expression of misery
that was almost grotesque. She carried a pail in each hand.

"Do be quick!" Christina spoke impatiently as she saw her niece appear
beyond the wood-stack.

Anna started at the harsh voice as if a lash had fallen on her back; the
pig's food splashed over her gown and filled her heavy leather shoes.

"I had better have done it myself," cried her aunt. "See, unhappy child,
you have wasted food and time also! Now you must go and clean your shoes
and stockings; your gown and apron are only fit for the wash-tub! Ah!"

She gave a deep sigh as she took up first one pail and then the other
and emptied the wash into the pig-trough without spilling a drop by the
way. Anna stood watching her admiringly.

"Well!" Christina turned round on her. "I ask myself, what is the use of
you, child? You are fifteen, and so far it seems to me that you are here
only to make work for others! When do you mean to do things as other
people do them? I ask myself, what would become of you if your father
were a poor man, and you had to earn your living?"

Anna had stooped yet more forward; she seemed to crouch as if she
wanted to get out of sight. Christina suddenly stopped and looked at her
for an answer. Anna fingered her splashed apron; she tried to speak, but
a lump rose in her throat, and she could not see for the hot tears that
would, against her will, rush to her eyes.

"I shall never do anything well," she said at last, and the misery in
her voice touched her aunt. "I used not to believe you, aunt, but now I
see that you are right. I can never be needful to any one." Then she
went on bitterly: "It would have been better if father had taken me up
to the lake on Scesaplana when I was a baby and drowned me there as he
drowned the puppies in the wash-tub."

Christina looked shocked; there was a frown on her heavy face, which was
usually as expressionless as if it had been carved in wood.

[Sidenote: "Go, you unlucky child!"]

"Fie!" she said. "Think of Gretchen's mother, old Barbara; she does not
complain of the goitre; though she has to bear it under her chin, she
tries to keep it out of sight. I wish you would do the same with your
clumsiness. There, go and change your clothes, go, you unlucky child,
go!"

* * * * *

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