Mrs.Rosenberg detected the cheat at once; and, as she was needing the money for the socks, she scolded Mandoline soundly, and pelted her pretty little hands, rat, tat, tat, with a steel thimble.
Dotty was a little startled, and peeped out at Lina from the corners of her eyes.

Mrs.Rosenberg scolded so hard that the paper bags overhead seemed to rattle, and some yellow pollen dropped out of one of them like shooting stars.
Dotty had never known that there are such cruel people in the world; but let me tell you, little reader, every mother is not like the gentle, low-voiced woman who takes you in her lap, and kindly reproves you when you have done wrong.

No; there are very different mothers; hard-working, ignorant ones, who do not know how to treat their children any more than you know how to build a brick house.
Mrs.Rosenberg was so severe and unreasonable, that her little daughter, through fear of her, had learned to deceive.

Still Mrs.Rosenberg loved Mandoline, and would have been a better mother, perhaps, if she had only known how, and had not had so much work to do.
Presently she went down stairs, and left the little girls together.
"Good!" said Lina, in a low voice.

"She's gone; now we'll play." "But you can't knit if you play, Lina.