Page:Pain--Eliza.djvu/46

Eliza's Mother mas, and you call it 'kindness!' Kindness! Hah! Oh, hah, hah!"

"Don't make those silly noises, and get on with your breakfast!" said Eliza.

Afterward she asked me if I still meant to send her mother that little vase.

"Oh, yes!" I said. "We can afford it; it's nothing to us."

Eliza, entirely misunderstanding the word that I next used, got up and said that she would not stop in the room to hear her poor mother sworn at.

"The word I used," I said, calmly, "was alabaster, and not what you suppose."

"You pronounced it just like the other thing."

"I pronounced it in an exclamatory manner," I replied, "from contempt! You seem to me very ready to think evil. This is not the first time!"

Eliza apologized. As a matter of fact, I really did say alabaster. But I said it emphatically, and I own that it relieved my feelings. 28