leeding thumb. "I think the
devil ought to be prayed for if he's such an abominable sinner--yes, I
do." And Moppet, whose belief in a personal devil was evidently large,
surveyed Miss Bidwell with uncompromising eyes.

"Tut!" said Miss Bidwell, to whom this novel idea savored of
ungodliness, but wishing to be lenient toward the child whose adoring
slave she was. "Miss Euphemia would be shocked to hear you."

"I shall not tell her," said the child shrewdly, "but I am going to pray
for the devil each night, whether any one else does or not."

"As you cannot work any longer on the sampler, you had best go to Miss
Pamela for your writing lesson," said Miss Bidwell.

"Pamela is out in the orchard with Josiah Huntington," said Moppet,
"and she would send me forthwith into the house if I went near her."

"Then find Miss Betty and read her a page in the primer. You know you
promised your father you would learn to read it correctly against his
return."

"Betty is gossiping in the garret chamber with Sally Tracy; surely I
must stop with you, Biddy, dear;" and Moppet twined her arms around Miss
Bidwell's neck, with her little coaxing face upraised for a kiss. When
Moppet said "Biddy dear" (which was her baby abbreviation for the old
servant), she became irresistible; so Miss Bidwell, much relieved at
dropping so puzzling a theological question as the propriety of
supplications for the well-being of his Satanic majesty, proposed that
she should tell Miss Moppet "a story," which met with delighted assent
from the little girl.

Miss Bidwell's stories, which dated back for many years and always began
with "when I was a little maid," were never failing in interest besides
being somewhat lengthy, as Moppet insisted upon minute detail, and
invariably corrected her when she chanced to omit the smallest
particular. That the story had been often told did not make it lose any
of its interest, and the shadows of the great elm which overhung the
sitting-room windows grew longer, while the sun sank lower and lower
unheeded, until Miss Bidwell, at the most thrilling part of her tale,
where a bloodthirsty and evil-minded Indian was about to appear,
suddenly laid down her work and exclaimed:--

"Hark! surely there is some one coming up the back path," and rising as
she spoke, she hurried out to the side porch, closely followed by
Moppet, who said to herself, with all a child's vivid and dramatic
imagination, "Perhaps it's an Indian coming