let you alone. What
business had Fanny to leave you in the chair, looking so impudently at
me, and if you had your head on, you would be laughing at me still?"
then he again looked at his finger, which smarted very much, and as he
saw the blood dropping down on the carpet, he bawled louder than ever.

Fanny, during a pause in her reading, heard him. "What can be the
matter with Norman?" she exclaimed, "may I run down and see?"

"Yes, my dear, and call me if he has really hurt himself," said Mrs
Norton, "but from the way in which he is crying, I do not think there is
anything very serious."

Fanny ran downstairs. She entered the drawing-room. For a moment, she
stood aghast, as the first object which met her sight, was her dear,
pretty Miss Lucy's head, lying some way apart from her body, with a huge
knife near it, and Norman standing not far off.

Fanny, as we have seen was a very sweet amiable girl, but, she had a
spirit and a temper, though she generally restrained the latter, when
inclined to give way to it. She saw at once that the cruel deed, had
been done by Norman, and her heart swelling with indignation, she rushed
forward, and gave him a box on the ear. She then threw herself down by
the side of her doll, and burst into tears. Then picking it up, she
endeavoured to fit on the head.

The unexpected blow, from his usually gentle sister, so astonished
Norman, that for a moment he ceased his shrieks.

"You naughty, naughty, boy," I wish papa had whipped you twice as much
as he did, and I hope, he may whip you again, she exclaimed, rising, and
about to give him another slap, but just then, her eye fell on his
bleeding hand, and he recommenced his shrieks and cries. She stopped,
looking at him with alarm.

"Oh, what is the matter? oh, what is the matter?" she cried out.

"Send for the doctor, send for the doctor," shrieked Norman.

"Come with me to Mrs Norton, she will know what to do," said Fanny,
wrapping his hand up in her handkerchief. "Mamma and granny are out, or
they would attend to you."

"No, no, no, I must have a doctor, I shall die, I know I shall," cried
Norman again and again.

Fanny cast a piteous glance at poor Miss Lucy which she had let fall,
and though feeling sure that Norman had cut off her head, she was so
much alarmed about him, that without stopping to ask him, with her young
heart full of sorrow, she led him up to Mrs Norton. She hoped he had
done it by accident, or in p