ate child threw himself back violently on the floor, and
screamed and shrieked in a paroxysm of rage; in the midst of which, the
threatened punishment came upon poor little Agnes, in the shape of a
sharp blow upon her cheek, from the soft, white hand of her mother, who
exclaimed:

"There! didn't I tell you so? It seems to be your greatest pleasure to
teaze and torment that poor baby; and you know he is sick, too. Now,
miss, the next time he screams, I shall take you to the north room, and
lock you up, and keep you there on bread and water all day!"

Agnes retreated to a corner, and wept silently, but very bitterly, not
so much from the pain of the blow, as from a sense of injustice and
harsh treatment at the hands of one who should have loved her; and the
mother returned to her novel, in which she was soon as deep as ever. At
the same moment, the looking-glass in the cover of the work-box flew
into fifty pieces, under the renewed blows of the hammer in Master
Lewie's hand.

The little conqueror now had free range among his sister's hitherto
carefully-guarded treasures; her bits of work, and little trinkets,
tokens of affection from her kind aunt and her young cousins at Brook
Farm, were ruthlessly torn in pieces, or broken and strewed over the
floor. Agnes sat in mute despair. She knew that as long as her mother
was absorbed in the novel, no sound would disturb her less powerful than
Lewie's screams, and that all else that might be going on in the room
would pass unnoticed by her. So, wiping her eyes, she sat still in the
corner, watching Lewie with silent anguish, as he revelled among her
precious things, as "happy as a king" in the work of destruction, and
only hoping that he might not discover one secret little spot in the
corner of the box where her dearest treasure was concealed.

But at length she started, and, with an exclamation of horror, and a
cry like that of pain, she sprang towards her little brother, and
violently wrenched something from his hand. And now the piercing shrieks
of the angry and astonished child filled the house, and brought even Old
Mammy to the room, to see what was the matter with the baby. Mammy
opened the door just in time to witness the severe punishment inflicted
upon little Agnes, and to receive an order to take that naughty girl to
the north room, and lock her in, and leave her there till farther
orders.

Agnes had not spoken before, when rebuked by her mother; but now,
raising