The things we do!

That Madelon was very naughty cannot be denied, and the fact
surprised no one so much as herself. The nuns, accustomed to
all sorts of children of every variety of temper, of every
shade of docility and wilfulness, of cleverness and stupidity,
found nothing astonishing in one more perverse little
specimen, but Madelon could not understand it at all. She was
not used to feeling naughty, and did not know what it meant at
first. In her life hitherto, when she had been as happy as the
day is long, she had had singularly few opportunities for
exercising the privilege of every child of Adam, and
exhibiting her original waywardness. But it was far otherwise
now, and she could not understand why she always felt cross,
always obstinate, always perverse; she only knew that she was
very miserable, and it was quite a discovery to be told one
day that it was because she was naughty, and that if she were
good, she would be happy.
"I always am good," said Madelon, firing up, and speaking from
the experience of former days, "and I am not at all happy--I
never shall be here.


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