le cakelets, probably what we
would call cookies. For what sinister reason no one could divine,
but she counted these cakes as she took them from the baking-pans
and placed them in the pantry. There were forty-nine, all told.
That evening she counted them again; there were forty-eight.
Then she complained to her husband that one of the children had
evidently stolen a cake. (In her mind the two negro servants
employed in the house did not merit the suspicion.) Mr. Bestman
inquired which child was fond of the cakes. Mrs. Bestman replied
that she did not know, unless it was Lydia, who always liked them.

Lydia was called. Her father, frowning, asked if she had taken the
cake. The child said no.

"You are not telling the truth," Mr. Bestman shouted, as the poor
little downtrodden girl stood half terrified, consequently half
guilty-mannered, before him.

"But I am truthful," she said. "I know nothing of the cake."

"You are not truthful. You stole it--you know you did. You shall be
punished for this falsehood," he stormed, and reached for the
cat-o'-nine-tails.

The child was beaten brutally and sent to her room until she could
tell the truth. When she was released she still held that she had
not taken the cooky. Another beating followed, then a third, when
finally the stepmother interfered and said magnanimously:

"Don't whip her any more; she has been punished enough." And once
during one of the beatings she protested, saying, "Don't strike the
child _on the head_ in that way."

But the iron had entered into Lydia's sister's soul. The injustice
of it all drove gentle Elizabeth's gentleness to the winds.

"Liddy darling," she said, taking the thirteen-year-old girl-child
into her strong young arms, "_I_ know truth when I hear it.
_You_ never stole that cake."

"I didn't," sobbed the child, "I didn't."

"And you have been beaten three times for it!" And the sweet young
mouth hardened into lines that were far too severe for a girl of
seventeen. Then: "Liddy, do you know that Mr. Evans has asked me to
marry him?"

"Mr. Evans!" exclaimed the child. "Why, you can't marry _him_,
'Liza! He's ever so old, and he lives away up in Canada, among the
Indians."

"That's one of the reasons that I should like to marry him," said
Elizabeth, her young eyes starry with zeal. "I want to work among
the Indians, to help in Christianizing them, to--oh! just to help."

"But Mr. Evans is so _old_," reiterated Lydia.

"Only thir