So matters grew from worse to worse on the island, the elder children
getting more discontented and the younger ones more fretful, when one
day they were altogether on the lawn in front of the palace. The big
ones were moodily walking about, plucking the flowers and listlessly
pulling them to pieces, or throwing them away as soon as plucked; the
little ones, cross as two sticks, as nurses sometimes say, were getting
into all sorts of mischief. One had lost her shoe, and was whimpering
because she could not find it; a little boy had had his finger stung by
a bee, and was roaring lustily in consequence; Teresa had fallen full
length, with arms all bare, into a bramble bush, where she lay moaning
piteously.
"What are the children making that row for?" cried Philip, as cross as
the crossest himself; "for half a pin I'd box all their ears. Now then,
what's the matter with you, you little sniveller?" said he, catching
hold of a fair-haired little fellow, who was blubbering his loudest, and
who seemed bent on rubbing his eyes out by the way in which he was
screwing his little fists into them.
"I--I--want my--ma--a, let--me--go--o--to--my--ma," said he, with a sob
between each word.
"You can't go home to your ma, then," said Philip, sharply, giving the
child a shake; but this, instead of quieting, only made him roar louder,
and his example was soon followed by all the rest of his age, and then
there was a dismal chorus, the burden of which was, "Ma, ma, ma.
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