ears before,
she adopted Agnes Stone, then an orphan, homeless and friendless; not by
any means to be "treated as one of the family," but to be tyrannised
over as drudge and victim in general. The transaction furnished her
with two endless topics for gossip, on which she dilated with great
enjoyment--her own surpassing generosity, and the orphan's intense
unworthiness. The generosity was not costly; for the portion of food
bestowed on Agnes consisted of the scraps usually given to a dog, while
she was clothed with such articles as were voted too shabby for the
family wear. All work which was dirty or disagreeable, fell to Agnes as
a matter of course. The widow's two daughters, Joan and Dorothy,
respectively made her the vent for ill-temper, and the butt for sarcasm;
and if, in some rare moment of munificence, either of them bestowed on
her a specked apple, or a faded ribbon, the most abject gratitude was
expected in return. She was practically a bond slave; for except by
running away, there was no chance of freedom; and running away, in her
case, meant starvation.

It had not always been thus. For ten years, more or less, before her
term of bondage to Martha Winter, Agnes had lived with an aunt, her only
surviving relative. During this stage of her life, she had taken her
fair share in the household work, had been fed and clothed--coarsely
indeed, for her aunt was comparatively poor, but sufficiently--and she
had been allowed a reasonable number of holidays, and had not been
scolded, except when she deserved it. Though her aunt was an
undemonstrative woman, who never gave her an endearing word or a caress,
yet life with her was Elysium compared with present circumstances. But
beyond even this, far back in early childhood, Agnes could dimly
recollect another life again--a life which was love and sunshine--when a
mother's hand came between her and hardship, a mother's heart brooded
warmly over her, and a mother's lips called her by tender pet names, "as
one whom his mother comforteth." That was long ago; so long, that to
look back upon it was almost like recalling some previous state of
existence; but the very memory of it, dim though it was, made the
present bondage all the harder.

The offence which Agnes had committed on this occasion lay in having
exceeded the time allowed her by six minutes. Out of respect to the
day, which was the festival of Corpus Christi, she had been graciously
granted the rare trea