Beth," she said at last. "You are so conceited;
you try to play things that are too difficult for you, and then you
get into trouble. It is no pleasure to me to punish you."

Beth remained with her back turned, immovable, and her mother looked
at her helplessly a little longer, and then left the room. When she
had gone, Beth sat down on the piano-stool. Her shabby shoes had holes
in them, her dress was worn thread-bare, and her sleeves were too
short for her. She had no collar or cuffs, and her thin hands and long
wrists looked hideous to her as they lay in her lap. Great tears
gathered in her eyes. So conceited indeed! What had she to be
conceited about? Every one despised her, and she despised herself.
Here the tears overflowed, and Beth began to cry at last, and cried
and cried for a long time very bitterly.

That afternoon, after Aunt Victoria had arrived, Lady Benyon and Aunt
Grace Mary called. Mrs. Caldwell had recovered her good-humour by that
time, and was all smiles to everybody, including Beth, when she came
sauntering in, languid and heavy-eyed, with half a sheet of notepaper
in her hand.

"What have you there, Puck?" said Lady Benyon, catching sight of some
hieroglyph drawn on the paper. Beth gave it to her, and she turned it
this way and that, but could make nothing of it.

"Mamma will tell us what it is," said Beth, taking it to her mother.

Mrs. Caldwell, still smiling, looked at the drawing. "It's an
astronomical sign, surely," she ventured.

"No, it is not," Beth said.

"Then I don't know what it is," her mother rejoined.

"Oh, but you must know, mamma," said Beth. "Look again."

"But I don't know, Beth," Mrs. Caldwell insisted.

"Couldn't you make it out if Aunt Victoria beat you?" Beth suggested.

Mrs. Caldwell changed countenance.

"That is what you expect me to do, at all events," Beth pursued. "Now,
you see, you can't do it yourself; and I ask you, was it fair to
expect me to make out a strange sign by staring at it?" She set her
mouth hard when she had spoken, and looked her mother straight in the
face. Mrs. Caldwell winced.

"What's the difficulty, Puck?" Lady Benyon asked.

"The difficulty is between me and mamma," Beth answered with dignity,
and then she left the room, sauntering out as she had come in, with an
utterly dispirited air.

The next morning she went to practice as usual, but Mrs. Caldwell did
not come to give her her music-lesson. Beth thought she had forgotten
it