After a silence of near a quarter of an hour, her Mamma said to her, What are you thinking of _Lydia_?
I am thinking, Mamma, how foolish I shall look, and how ashamed I shall be to-morrow morning, when you read this naughty story of me.
Really, my dear, I shall not feel less ashamed nor concerned than you; and I was in great hope, after you had experienced the comfort of being good, that you would not have again relapsed into your old faults.
I am sure, Mamma, this morning I did not think I should ever have been naughty again. What must I do?
I hope the feeling so foolish and ashamed as you say you shall do, on hearing this account read, will prevent your behaving so again. Endeavour now to make amends for your fault, by taking great pains with your lesson. There is the book, now find _Pierre_.
_Lydia_ did as she was bidden; and got her lesson very well, and behaved pretty well the rest of the day, though not quite so pleasingly as she had done some days before: for the thought of her misbehaviour had hurt her spirits, and inclined her to be a little fretful and whining.
The meeting at breakfast, you may suppose, was not a very pleasant one to Miss _Lydia_. Her Mamma, however, after reading the account of her fault, added, that she had acknowledged herself truly sorry and ashamed of it, and had learned her lesson very diligently; and then embracing her, said, she dared say she should never be obliged to put her to the blush again.
Miss _Lydia_ now began the day with again trying to be very good; but not with half the spirit and cheerfulness that she had done before her fault; and in the course of the three or four next weeks she was very frequently off her guard. However she persevered in striving to be good, and often, when she had begun to speak crossly, or be idle, or argue with her Mamma, she would recollect herself, and stop short at once, and running to her Mamma, say, My dear Mamma do kiss me, and then I will be good. Acting thus, she became less and less apt to offend, and many days passed without one unpleasant story to tell.
It happened, however, one day, when she and her little brother were in the garden, that he took off the bench a nosegay she had just been tying up, with an intention of presenting it to her Mamma. She ran with some eagerness to take it from him; but the little fellow was tenacious of it; upon which she grew angry, and a contest ensued; at last, in a passion, she took hold of the tops of the flowers, and pulled them all to pieces, and threw her brother down by her violence. _Edwin_ began crying; and she, who loved him dearly, forgot all her anger immediately, begged his pardon for having thrown him down, and asked, whether he was hurt? A few kisses and another flower soon made it up with little _Edwin_, and this quarrel passed over without being observed by any body, and had really been forgotten by Miss _Lydia_ till she went to-bed.