"It's not," returned Amy, "that they watch every bit I put in my mouth--I don't complain of that, for they're poor--at least they're always saying so, and of course they want to make the most of me; but not to be trusted one moment out of their sight except they know exactly where I am--to be always suspected, and followed and watched, and me working my hardest--that's what drives me wild, Miss Raymount. I'm afraid they'll make me hate them out and out--and them my own flesh and blood, too, which can't but be wicked! I bore it very well for a while, for at first it only amused me. I said to myself, 'They'll soon know me better!' But when I found they only got worse, I got tired of it altogether; and when I got tired of it I got cross, and grew more and more cross, till now I can't _bear_ it. I'm not used to be cross, and my own crossness is much harder to bear than theirs. If I could have kept the good temper people used to praise me for to my mother, I shouldn't mind; but it _is_ hard to lose it this way! I don't know how to get on without it! If there don't come a change somehow soon, I shall run away--I shall indeed, Miss Raymount. There are many would be glad enough to have me for the work I can get through." She jumped to her feet, gave a little laugh, merry-sad, and before Hester could answer her, said-- "You're going away so soon, miss! Let me do your hair to-night. I want to brush it every night till you go." "But you are tired, my poor child!" said Hester compassionately. "Not too tired for that: it will rest me, and bring back my good temper, It will come to me again through your hair, miss." "No, no, Amy," said Hester, a little conscience-stricken, "you can't have any of mine. I have none to spare. You will rather brush some into me, Amy. But do what you like with my hair." As Amy lovingly combed and brushed the long, wavy overflow of Hester's beauty, Hester tried to make her understand that she must not think of good-temper and crossness merely as things that could be put into her and taken out of her. She tried to make her see that nothing really our own can ever be taken from us by any will or behavior of another; that Amy had had a large supply of good-temper laid ready to her hand, but that it was not hers until she had made it her own by choosing and willing to be good-tempered when she was disinclined--holding it fast with the hand of determination when the hand of wrong would snatch it from her. "Because I have a book on my shelves," she said, "it is not therefore mine; when I have read and understood it, then it is a little mine; when I love it and do what it tells me, then it is altogether mine: it is like that with a good temper: if you have it sometimes, and other times not, then it is not yours; it lies in you like that book on my table--a thing priceless were it your own, but as it is, a thing you can't keep even against your poor weak old aunts."