e
used her voice, she let out the truth. Nobody could hear her speak, and
doubt for a moment that she was an inveterately ill-natured woman.

"Make your curtsey, child!" said Miss Wigger. Nature had so toned her
voice as to make it worthy of the terrors of her face. But for her
petticoats, it would have been certainly taken for the voice of a man.

The child obeyed, trembling.

"You are to go away with me," the school-mistress proceeded, "and to be
taught to make yourself useful under my roof."

Syd seemed to be incapable of understanding the fate that was in store
for her. She sheltered herself behind her merciless mother. "I'm going
away with you, mamma," she said--"with you and Rick."

Her mother took her by the shoulders, and pushed her across the room to
her aunt.

The child looked at the formidable female creature with the man's voice
and the green spectacles.

"You belong to me," said Miss Wigger, by way of encouragement, "and
I have come to take you away." At those dreadful words, terror shook
little Syd from head to foot. She fell on her knees with a cry of misery
that might have melted the heart of a savage. "Oh, mamma, mamma, don't
leave me behind! What have I done to deserve it? Oh, pray, pray, pray
have some pity on me!"

Her mother was as selfish and as cruel a woman as ever lived. But even
her hard heart felt faintly the influence of the most intimate and most
sacred of all human relationships. Her florid cheeks turned pale. She
hesitated.

Miss Wigger marked (through her own green medium) that moment of
maternal indecision--and saw that it was time to assert her experience
as an instructress of youth.

"Leave it to me," she said to her sister. "You never did know, and you
never will know, how to manage children."

She advanced. The child threw herself shrieking on the floor. Miss
Wigger's long arms caught her up--held her--shook her. "Be quiet, you
imp!" It was needless to tell her to be quiet. Syd's little curly
head sank on the schoolmistress's shoulder. She was carried into exile
without a word or a cry--she had fainted.

10.--The School.

Time's march moves slowly, where weary lives languish in dull places.

Dating from one unkempt and unacknowledged birthday to another, Sydney
Westerfield had attained the sixth year of her martyrdom at School. In
that long interval no news of her mother, her brother, or her stepfather
had reached England; she had received no letter, she had not e