-room, Pamela leading the way, and Huntington
following her with a half-mischievous smile curving his usually grave
mouth.

CHAPTER III

OLIVER'S PRISONER

"I don't care anything about it," said Miss Moppet with decision. "It's
a nasty, horrid letter, and I've made it over and over, and it will not
get one bit plainer. Count one, two, jump one; then two stitches plain;
it's no use at all, Miss Bidwell, I cannot make it any better." And with
a deep sigh Miss Moppet surveyed her sampler, where she had for six
weeks been laboriously trying to inscribe "Faith Wolcott, her sampler,
aged nine," with little success and much loss of temper.

"W is a hard letter," said Miss Bidwell, laying down one of the
perpetual stockings with which she seemed always supplied for mending
purposes; "you will have to rip this out again; the first stroke is too
near the letter before it;" and she handed the unhappy sampler back to
the child.

"It's always like that," said Miss Moppet in a tone of exasperation. "I
think a sampler is the very _devil_!"

"Oh," said Miss Bidwell in a shocked voice, "I shall have to report you
as a naughty chit if you use such language."

"Well, it just _is_" said Moppet; "that's what the minister said in his
sermon Sunday week, and you know, Miss Bidwell, that you admired it
extremely, because I heard you tell Pamela so."

"Admired the devil?" said Miss Bidwell. "Child, what are you talking
about?"

"The sermon," said Miss Moppet, breaking her silk for the fourth time;
"the minister said the devil went roaring up and down the earth seeking
whom he might devour. Wouldn't I like to hear him roar. Do you conceive
it is like a bull or a lion's roar?"

"The Bible says a lion," said Miss Bidwell, looking all the more severe
because she was so amused.

"I am truly sorry for that poor devil," said Miss Moppet, heaving a deep
sigh. "Just think how tired he must become, and how much work he must
have to do. O--o--oh!"--a prolonged scream--"he certainly has possession
of my sampler"--dancing up and down with pain--"for that needle has
gone one inch into my thumb!"

"Come here and let me bind it up," said Miss Bidwell, seizing the small
sinner as she whirled past her. "How often must I tell you not to give
way to such sinful temper? And talking about the devil is not proper for
little girls."

"Why not just as well as for older folk?" said Moppet, submitting to
have a soft bit of rag bound around the b