afternoon went by, but no one
came to look for me.

"It must be nearly tea-time," I said to myself, though reluctant to own
that I was hungry. "No one cares what becomes of me."

Just then I heard a step approaching. It was Emilia.

"Oh, Lois!" she exclaimed; and I could tell by her voice that she had
been crying. "I have been looking everywhere for you. Oh, dear Lois, do
say you forgive me?"

"No," I said sullenly, turning from her and pushing away her
outstretched arms, "I will _never_ forgive you."

And this was my only reply to her repeated words of sorrow and
affection, till at last in despair she went away. Then, knowing that my
retreat was discovered, I got up and went into the house, up to my own
room. I sent down word by one of the servants that my head ached, and I
did not want any tea, and my mother, judging it wiser from my sisters'
account of me not to drive matters to extremity, let me have my own way.
She came up to see me, and said quietly that she hoped my head would be
better to-morrow, but that was all, and I encouraged nothing more, and
when Emilia came to my door to say good-night, I would not answer her.

The next day things were no better. By this time my continued crying had
really made my head ache more badly than it had ever ached before. I
got up and dressed, but had to lie down again, and thus I spent the day;
and when my sisters came in to see me I would not speak to them. Never,
I think, was child more perfectly miserable; and though I gave little
thought to that part of the matter, I can now see that I must have made
the whole household wretched. And yet by this time I was doing myself
the greatest injustice. I was no longer angry with Emilia. I was simply
sunk in grief. My pink pet was crushed into dust; how it had happened,
or who was to blame, I did not care. I was just broken-hearted.

I think it must have been the evening of the second day after the
tragedy of the shell that I was sitting alone in my little room, when
there came a tap at the door. "Come in," I said listlessly, never for a
moment supposing it to be any one but the housemaid. The door opened and
I glanced up. My visitor was Aunt Lois. I had forgotten all about her
coming, though I now remembered hearing that she was expected a week or
two before Margaret's marriage.

"Aunt Lois!" I exclaimed, starting up, but when I felt her bright kindly
eyes looking at me inquiringly, I grew red and turned away; but she
came