oduced amendment. Poor thing! how many of
the sweetest pleasures of existence are unknown to her! She is a stranger
to the satisfaction of obliging others, and to the consciousness of
overcoming herself, which, I trust, you all know to be an inestimable
blessing. I truly pity her; but I am compelled to treat her as if I blamed
her only; I am obliged to be harsh, in order that I may be useful, and give
pain to produce ease."

In about an hour, finding that no one approached, and feeling the want of
the dinner her shameful rudeness and petulance had interrupted, and which
she had but just begun, Matilda came down stairs, with the air of a person
who is struggling to hide, by effrontery, the chagrin she is conscious of
deserving: no person took any notice of her entrance, and all appearance
of the good meal she wanted was removed. There was a certain something in
the usually-smiling faces of the heads of the mansion that acted as a
repellent to her, and she sat for some time silent; but at length she spoke
to Ellen, who, from her gentle meekness, was ever easy of access, and whom,
intending to mortify, she accosted thus--"Nelly, did you eat my chicken?"

Charles burst into a loud laugh, as Ellen, who had never heard herself thus
addressed, for a moment looked rather foolish; on which he answered for
her, with a somewhat provoking sauciness of countenance--"No, Matty, she
did not eat your chicken."

"My name is not Matty--it is Matilda Sophia, and you are a great booby for
calling me so; but Nelly, or Nell, is short for Ellen, and by one of those
names I shall call her, whenever I choose, if it be only to vex _you_."

"Perhaps, too, you will choose to prick her, and pinch her, Miss Matilda
Sophia Hanson?" answered Charles, sneeringly, drawing out her name as long
and as pompously as it was possible.

"Fie, Charles!" said Edmund; "I am sure you act as if you had forgotten all
that papa told us about Miss Hanson."

Charles, after a moment's thought, acknowledged that he was wrong, very,
very wrong.

Matilda was much struck with this; she was well aware that, under the
same circumstances, she should have said much more than he had, and she was
curious as to what had been said of her, which could have produced this
effect on a boy generally so vivacious and warm-tempered as Charles. After
cogitating upon it some time, she at length concluded that Mr. Harewood had
endeavoured to impress on the minds of his family the conse