as enough to have discouraged the most patient, and
poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so
strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness,
and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her
still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand
could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power
on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they
were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which
stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself,
had made up her mind to "take no notice of the little wretches."

"Fancy!" she said; "shrinking at Anne--Anne, of all people in the world!
There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little
disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are
John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must
be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to
love."

"Oh, much, Sophy," said Anne, drying her eyes; "they are our own flesh
and blood."

"I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least,
they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her,
can I?--whom I never saw?"

The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.

"I hope they will get to like us," she said. "Poor little darlings!
everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that
they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust
to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them--"

"I am going to help little Ursula with her packing," said Sophy hastily;
and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw
herself down in a chair by the fire, "Anne is too good to live," she
cried. "She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things
like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre--_Anne!_ why, a
little dog knows better--as I said before."

"I don't think they are very pretty children," said Ursula, not knowing
how to reply.

"Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?" said Sophy, who was
relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. "The whole
question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image
that does not know you, that can't respond to