IT is things like this that make the Distressing Doubt thrive. When Sara had been good she had been insufferable; bad she was adorable, for children are seldom willfully bad. They forget the foolish things which we tell them to do or not to do that are so apart from all their lives—strange muddlesome commands imposed upon them from without—and once in a while they disobey furtively or with gloomy defiance. They don't reason out what there is wrong about their conduct that it should bring such dark consequences.
When they are little their attitude is often too much like the attitude of a pious dog who always begs your pardon when you happen to step on him, being sure that you are right always and thinking that you have meant to punish him, since you have hurt him. But hardly ever has one a chance of seeing a child joyfully bad. Older people know that fine heady feeling of breaking the small "thou shalt nots" of their environments, and a child behaving like Sara was a beautiful spectacle.
The next day Sara came down to breakfast, her eyes gleaming impishly. "Do you remember what I said last night?" she inquired. "Do you remember how I wouldn't go to bed? Do you remember," her voice rose in a defiant note, "how I wouldn't do what my father told me? I'm just like that to-day; I am bad! Bad Sara has come back!"
It was true. Bad Sara had come back; she had come back charming, nerve-racking, willfully disobedient, fertile in mischief, but lovable. Toward noon, however,
