let me out--let me
out!'

'I'll not let you out till I've broken your spirit, my girl; you may
rely on that.'

The sharp voice stopped abruptly on a high note; determined feet in
strong boots sounded on the stairs--fainter, fainter; a door slammed
below with a dreadful definiteness, and Elsie was left alone, to wonder
how soon her spirit would break--for at no less a price, it appeared,
could freedom be bought.

The outlook seemed hopeless. The martyrs and heroines, with whom Elsie
usually identified herself, _their_ spirit had never been broken; not
chains nor the rack nor the fiery stake itself had even weakened them.
Imprisonment in an attic would to them have been luxury compared with
the boiling oil and the smoking faggots and all the intimate cruelties
of mysterious instruments of steel and leather, in cold dungeons, lit
only by the dull flare of torches and the bright, watchful eyes of
inquisitors.

A month in the house of 'Auntie' self-styled, and really only an
unrelated Mrs. Staines, paid to take care of the child, had held but one
interest--Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It was a horrible book--the thick
oleographs, their guarding sheets of tissue paper sticking to the prints
like bandages to a wound.... Elsie knew all about wounds: she had had
one herself. Only a scalded hand, it is true, but a wound is a wound,
all the world over. It was a book that made you afraid to go to bed; but
it was a book you could not help reading. And now it seemed as though it
might at last help, and not merely sicken and terrify. But the help was
frail, and broke almost instantly on the thought--'_They_ were brave
because they were good: how can I be brave when there's nothing to be
brave about except me not knowing the difference between turnips and
weeds?'

She sank down, a huddled black bunch on the bare attic floor, and called
wildly to some one who could not answer her. Her frock was black because
the one who always used to answer could not answer any more. And her
father was in India, where you cannot answer, or even hear, your little
girl, however much she cries in England.

'I won't cry,' said Elsie, sobbing as violently as ever. 'I can be
brave, even if I'm not a saint but only a turnip-mistaker. I'll be a
Bastille prisoner, and tame a mouse!' She dried her eyes, though the
bosom of the black frock still heaved like the sea after a storm, and
looked about for a mouse to tame. One could not begin too soon. But
unfortun