But he felt as if
his word was rather pledged to his gossip, and there was the mother,
waiting and expectant. She was a red-cheeked English girl, who had
been in Sam Vaughan's employ; she had recently married one Burjust,
and he was unwilling to support the first husband's child, so this
chance to bind her out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly
caught at.

The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales' mercy, and he had not
the courage to disappoint his friend or her mother; so the necessary
papers were made out, Sam Vaughan's and wife's signatures affixed, and
Margaret Burjust's mark, and he set out on his homeward journey with
the child.

The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had some natural
affection; she "took on" sadly when the little girl was about to leave
her, and Ann clung to her frantically. It was a pitiful scene, and
Samuel Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad when it was
over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.

But he had had other troubles to encounter. All at once, as he rode
through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after
leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his
hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the
fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into
Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by
began to hoot and laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and
started up. For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free
himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had: she
clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.
Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master's
steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the
end of the queue followed it. Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a
jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each
of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter
from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went
back and picked up his hat and ribbon.

He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann
effectually. But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small
vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a
tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered what Polly
would say. The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the
horse at his own door, c