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When the good couple received their friends at home, there was no escaping from Amelia. If it was a dinner-party, she came in with the dessert, or perhaps sooner. She would take up her position near some one, generally the person most deeply engaged in conversation, and either lean heavily against him or her, or climb on to his or her knee, without being invited. She would break in upon the most interesting discussion with her own little childish affairs, in the following style–“I’ve been out to-day. I walked to the town. I jumped across three brooks. Can you jump? Papa gave me sixpence to-day. I am saving up my money to be rich. You may cut me an orange; no, I’ll take it to Mr. Brown, he peels it with a spoon and turns the skin back. Mr. Brown! Mr. Brown! Don’t talk to Mamma, but peel me an orange, please. Mr. Brown! I’m playing with your finger-glass.”

And when the finger-glass full of cold water had been upset on to Mr. Brown’s shirt-front, Amelia’s mamma would cry–“Oh dear, oh dear-r-Ramelia!” and carry her off with the ladies to the drawing-room.

Here she would scramble on to the ladies’ knees, or trample out the gathers of their dresses, and fidget with their ornaments, startling some luckless lady by the announcement, “I’ve got your bracelet undone at last!” who would find one of the divisions broken open by force, Amelia not understanding the working of a clasp.

Or perhaps two young lady friends would get into a quiet corner for a chat. The observing child would sure to spy them, and run on to them, crushing their flowers and ribbons, and crying–“You two want to talk secrets, I know. I can hear what you say. I’m going to listen, I am. And I shall tell, too;” when perhaps a knock at the door announced the Nurse to take Miss Amelia to bed, and spread a general rapture of relief.

Then Amelia would run to trample and worry her mother, and after much teasing, and clinging, and complaining, the Nurse would be dismissed, and the fond mamma would turn to the lady next to her, and say with a smile–“I suppose I must let her stay up a little. It is such a treat to her, poor child!”

But it was no treat to the visitors.

Besides tormenting her fellow-creatures, Amelia had a trick of teasing animals. She was really fond of dogs, but she was still fonder of doing what she was wanted not to do, and of worrying everything and everybody about her. So she used to tread on the tips of their tails, and pretend to give them biscuit, and then hit them on the nose, besides pulling at those few, long, sensitive hairs which thin-skinned dogs wear on the upper lip.

Now Amelia’s mother’s acquaintances were so very well-bred and amiable, that they never spoke their minds to either the mother or the daughter about what they endured from the latter’s rudeness, wilfulness, and powers of destruction. But this was not the case with the dogs, and they expressed their sentiments by many a growl and snap. At last one day Amelia was tormenting a snow-white bulldog (who was certainly as well-bred and as amiable as any living creature in the kingdom), and she did not see that even his patience was becoming worn out. His pink nose became crimson with increased irritation, his upper lip twitched over his teeth, behind which he was rolling as many warning R’s as Amelia’s mother herself. She finally held out a bun towards him, and just as he was about to take it, she snatched it away and kicked him instead. This fairly exasperated the bulldog, and as Amelia would not let him bite the bun, he bit Amelia’s leg.

Her mamma was so distressed that she fell into hysterics, and hardly knew what she was saying. She said the bulldog must be shot for fear he should go mad, and Amelia’s wound must be done with a red-hot poker for fear she should go mad (with hydrophobia). And as of course she couldn’t bear the pain of this, she must have chloroform, and she would most probably die of that; for as one in several thousands dies annually under chloroform, it was evident that her chance of life was very small indeed. So, as the poor lady said, “Whether we shoot Amelia and burn the bulldog–at least I mean shoot the bulldog and burn Amelia with a red-hot poker–or leave it alone; and whether Amelia or the bulldog has chloroform or bears it without–it seems to be death or madness every way!”