p window, or stray from Aunt
Jemima's side. And then, in the evening, after their early tea, while Aunt
Jemima sat at her work at the table, the poor little infant was perched on
a chair before the fire, and there required to sit till her bed-time, with
her legs dangling till they ached again, while the tiny head became so
heavy that it nodded this way and that in unconquerable drowsiness, and,
on more occasions than one, the child rolled over and fell to the floor,
like a ball.

One lesson which Aunt Jemima took infinite pains to lodge in Marian's
dusky little head was that she must never speak unless she was first
spoken to; and if, in the exuberance of child-nature, she transgressed
this rule, especially at meal-times, Aunt Jemima's mouth would open like a
pair of nut-crackers, and she would give utterance to a succession of such
snappish chidings, that Marian would almost be afraid she was going to be
swallowed up. A hundred times a day the child incurred the righteous ire
of this cast-iron aunt. From morning to night the little thing was
worried almost out of her life by the grim governess of her father's
house; and Aunt Jemima even haunted her dreams.

Marian had one propensity which Aunt Jemima early set herself to repress.
The child was gifted with an innate love of rambling. More than once, when
very young indeed, she had wandered far away from home, and her father
and mother had thought her lost. But she had always, as by an unerring
instinct, found her way back. This propensity it was, indeed, necessary to
restrain; but Aunt Jemima adopted measures for the purpose which were the
sternest of the stern. She issued a decree that Marian was never to leave
the house, except when accompanied by either her father or Miss Jemima
herself. In order that the object of this restriction might be effectually
secured, it became necessary that Miss Jemima should take the child with
her on almost every occasion when she herself went out. These events were
intensely dreaded by Marian; and she would shrink into a corner of the
room when she observed Aunt Jemima making preparations for leaving the
house. But she made no actual show of reluctance; and it would be
difficult to tell whether she was the more afraid of going out with
Aunt Jemima, or of letting Aunt Jemima see that she was afraid.

It was a terrible time for the poor child. On every side she was checked,
frowned upon, and kept down. If she was betrayed into the utter