Mary began soon to believe that Sarah was never absent from her, that she attended her, invisibly, her little dark face peering over Mary's shoulder, and when Mary was in bed at night, the lights out, and only shadows on the walls, Sarah was certainly there, her mocking eyes on Mary's face, her voice whispering things in Mary's ears.
Sarah, Mary very soon discovered, believed in nothing, and knew everything.

This horrible combination, naturally, affected Mary, who believed in everything and knew nothing.
"Why should we obey our mothers ?" said Sarah.

"We're as good as they are." "Oh, _no_," said Mary, in a voice shocked to a strangled whisper.
Nevertheless, she began, a little, to despise her confused parents.
There came a day when Mary told a very large lie indeed; she said that she had brushed her teeth when she had not, and she told this lie quite unprompted by Sarah.

She was more and more miserable as the days passed.
No one knew exactly the things that the two little girls did when they were alone on an afternoon in Sarah's room.

Sarah sent Hortense about her business, and then set herself to the subdual of Mary's mind and character.