Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/131

Rh peasantry shrank from one whom extreme indulgence had, as extreme indulgence always does, rendered selfish and overbearing. Mabel saw she was disliked, and also felt her own deficiencies; for, only last Christmas, she had been taught her first lesson, in mortification. Now, bitter, but useful, mortification is the stepping-stone to knowledge, even in a child.

Mr. Dacre had a daughter, Mrs. Harcourt, who, together with a fine family, lived at a distance; but last Christmas she and her four daughters had volunteered Mr. Dacre a visit. Mabel had been impatient for the arrival of her cousins, to a degree that had put a stop to either sleeping, eating, playing, or, indeed, any faculty but talking: she would do this, that, and the other (to use a favourite phrase of her nurse's), when her cousins arrived. Nay, her generosity had arrived, in imagination, even to letting them have her pony—a little, rough, wild animal, which had once or twice nearly broken her neck, but was, nevertheless, a prodigious favourite. The day arrived—she was awake long before, and up as soon as, it was light, though she had been duly informed it was impossible they could arrive before evening.