Sarah Smith

home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, t

crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, ‘She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bes- sie, and could di

rom privileges intended only for

sie say I have

hing truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.

olume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window seat: gathering up my feet, I

ear November day. At in-intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale

certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl;

r Naze, to t

d the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and

ervoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole and concentre the multiplied rigors of extreme cold.’ Of these death-wh

sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to th

sentiment haunted

wo trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and

n a torpid sea, I believ

wn the thief’s pack

it was an ob

ed aloof on a rock, surveying a di

on winter evenings when she chanced to be in good humor; and when having brought her iron-ing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Tu

ages of Pamela, and He

east in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, a

cried the voice of

found the

Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here:

y hiding place: nor would Clark Turner have found it out himself; he was not quick eith

window seat, to

I trembled at the idea of bein

ward diffidence. ‘Say, ‘What do you w

lf in an armchair, he intimated by a gesture

at the table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, ‘on account of his delicate health.’ Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he woul

uch affection for hi

every nerve I had feared him, and ev- every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewilde

nd Mrs. Turner was blind and deaf on the subject: she never s

ce, more frequently, ho

he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in

id he, ‘and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, a

n idea of replying to it; my care was how to endu

ehind the curtain?’ he

the

he window and f

you are a pendent, mama says; you have

ot live here with g

at the same me

elves: for they ARE mine; all the house belongs to me or will do in a few ye

inctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my hea

e like a murderer—you are like a slave-

opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also, I had drawn parallel

at to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and G

ulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I saw in him

or the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don’t very well kno

gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Be

Clark!’ ‘Did ever anybody see such a pictu

her in there.’ Four hands were immediatel