"Well, I never saw anything like you for carelessness," she said in a high-keyed voice.
"There goes another of that set! You were vexed, or that wouldn't have happened. I heard how you slammed about after I spoke to you. Now pick up the pieces and go away. I will wash them myself."
Every nerve in the girl's body fairly quivered. Her mother had touched her on a tender point. She had been drilled by her music-teacher for a long time on the high notes of a difficult piece of music, and she had just succeeded in trilling it out to her own satisfaction and delight, when she was startled by her mother's voice. Poor Margaret! She had a hot temper, and when the severe reprimand for her carelessness was added, she felt so angry and disgraced that she would have said many a word to repent of, but happily she could not control her voice to speak. Every time she attempted it, a choking sob stood right in the doorway, and would not let the wicked words out.
Mrs. Murray was a pattern housekeeper, a model of neatness. Everything in her house shone, from the parlour windows to the kitchen stove. Her cake was always light, her bread sweet. No table could compare with hers for delicious variety. Her housekeeping was a fine art, before which everything else was made to bow. Her parlour was made most attractive in all its appointments, and everything that goes to make a pleasant home was lavishly supplied by her husband; yet a more uncomfortable family it would be hard to find.
The parlour was kept closed and dark, except on rare occasion. Flies, and dust, and mud were Mrs. Murray's avowed enemies. To overcome them was the chief end of her life; to this end she tortured her husband, and son, and daughters. Summer and winter she diligently pursued them, and many a tempest was evolved in that house from a source no greater than a muddy foot-print, or stray fly or two, for in summer the house was enclosed in wire screens, and heedless people were for ever leaving them open.
Economy, too, another most desirable virtue, was in this home made to appear almost a vice. She would not let the sunshine in, lest it would fade the carpet. She made her room dingy and unpleasant in the evening, to save gas. She would not make a fire in the parlour in the winter, because it wasted coal. She would not open it in summer because dust ruined the furniture. To make matters worse, Mrs. Murray was a woman made principally of nerves. She was a constitutional fretter. It must be said in her justification that she came of a nervous race. There are different kinds of nervous people; this family did not belong to that limp class who start with affright at every noise, or faint at sight of a spider. Their nerves were too tightly drawn, and like a delicate stringed instrument, when a rude touch came, snap! went a string, making all life's music into discord as far as they were concerned. The discord usually expressed itself in scolding. It is a real luxury for the time, to the wicked nerves to give somebody a sound beating. Mrs. Murray's mother and grandmother and great-grandmother had made a practice of scolding their children, their servants, and their husbands, when necessary, and it never seemed to occur to her that there was any other way to manage affairs.