would there be a better than
Frederick and her mother returning from so late and unconscionable a
jaunt, and doubtless shivering with the cold? This accomplished, and
the savory stew simmering over the stove, Helen washed her hands, that
had nearly lost their patrician shape and whiteness, took off her apron,
and withdrew to the parlor. There she found that Master Tommy had, some
time since, left little Sarah to her own devices, and she had forthwith
broken the string, and scattered the beads of the rosary in every
direction upon the floor, while he stood breathing upon a distant
window-pane, and drawing pictures with his finger-tip on the groundwork
thus effected, humming the while one of his favorite tunes to himself.

"Now, Tommy," said Helen, "I'll hear your lesson."

"No, you won't," sang Tommy to his tune.

"Why not?"

"'Cause I can't say it."

"Then we'll learn it together. F-a-t-h, what does that spell?"

"Don't know," said Tommy, his finger in his mouth.

"See now if you can't remember," urged Helen, giving him each letter
phonetically.

"Don't want to know," said Tommy.

Here, little Sarah, who had heard the lesson many times, informed him
what the desired syllable ought to be, and inferred the rest herself.
Whereupon Helen proceeded to the next word. But there Tommy proved
obdurate, not only didn't know, and didn't want to know, but refused to
hear, and presented such a fearful example to his younger sister, that
his elder one had no resource but to transfer the cloak from Sarah to
Tommy, and to shut him up in the dark closet. That done, she laid the
sticks together in the grate, that was never made for sticks, and blew
up a nice blaze, that warmed and lighted all the damp and dark old room;
and, taking little Sarah in her arms, rocked and sung her away to sleep.

It was a dismal room, and had been long deserted,--possibly owing to its
former dreariness, and possibly to the report of its haunted space and
shadow; for over the chimney-piece was the panel with the pale, proud
face of old General Fotherington's dead wife painted on it, which every
midnight he was once believed to return and visit. But when other parts
of the house had fallen into hopeless disrepair, Helen had taken Tommy's
little hatchet, and had felled the lofty lilac-hedge that obscured all
the southern windows of the room, had cleaned the old paint, made good
use of a bucket of white-wash, reset the broken glass herself, and then