ut mirrored something of
Charlotte Corday's hapless woe.

"Ain't it lovely?" sighed the humble twain, who had done most of the
labor, but who generously admired the result.

"I hate to have to take it down," said Alice, "it's been such a sight
of work."

"If you think you could move up some stones and just take off the top
rows, I could step out over," suggested Charlotte Corday. "Then leave
the stones, and you two can step down into the prison to-morrow and be
the two little princes in the Tower, and I can murder you."

"What princes? What tower?" asked Alice and Emma Jane in one breath.
"Tell us about them."

"Not now, it's my supper time." (Rebecca was a somewhat firm
disciplinarian.)

"It would be elergant being murdered by you," said Emma Jane loyally,
"though you are awful real when you murder; or we could have Elijah and
Elisha for the princes."

"They'd yell when they was murdered," objected Alice; "you know how
silly they are at plays, all except Clara Belle. Besides if we once
show them this secret place, they'll play in it all the time, and
perhaps they'd steal things, like their father."

"They needn't steal just because their father does," argued Rebecca;
"and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be my
secret, partic'lar friends. My mother tells me never to say hard things
about people's own folks to their face. She says nobody can bear it,
and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault. Remember
Minnie Smellie!"

Well, they had no difficulty in recalling that dramatic episode, for it
had occurred only a few days before; and a version of it that would
have melted the stoniest heart had been presented to every girl in the
village by Minnie Smellie herself, who, though it was Rebecca and not
she who came off victorious in the bloody battle of words, nursed her
resentment and intended to have revenge.

VII

RIVERBORO SECRETS

Mr. Simpson spent little time with his family, owing to certain awkward
methods of horse-trading, or the "swapping" of farm implements and
vehicles of various kinds,--operations in which his customers were
never long suited. After every successful trade he generally passed a
longer or shorter term in jail; for when a poor man without goods or
chattels has the inveterate habit of swapping, it follows naturally
that he must have something to swap; and having nothing of his own, it
follows still more naturally that he must swap something belo