post.

See! she creeps up to Nettie's bed, and a heavy frown gathers on her
wrinkled face as she spies the letter on her bosom. Now she draws it
from between the child's fingers, reads it, mutters something between
her closed teeth, and then burns it to cinders in the candle; then she
shakes her head, and frowning darkly at little Nettie, glides,
spectre-like, out of the room.

* * *

The same bright moon shines in at a window in the city. It is past
midnight, but a lady sits there, toiling, toiling, toiling, though her
lids long ago drooped heavily, and the candle is nearly burned to the
socket. _Why_ does she toil? Why does she sigh? Why does she get up and
walk the floor as if afraid that sleep may overtake her?

Ah! a mother's love never dies out. That lady is Nettie's mother. She
has something to work _for_;--she is trying to earn money enough (cent
by cent) to bring home, and clothe and feed that poor little weeping,
home-sick Nettie, who cried herself to sleep, with her mother's letter
hugged to her bosom.

The old lady whom you saw burning Nettie's letter, was her grandmother.
She was very jealous of Nettie's mother, because her son (Nettie's
father,) loved her so well; and after he died she revenged herself upon
her, by giving her all the pain she could. She promised if Nettie would
come and live with her to be kind to her; and as Nettie's mother and
little sister Ida hadn't enough to eat, Nettie had to go and live with
the old lady. She cried very hard, and her mother cried too, and so did
Nettie's little sister Ida; but the old lady promised that Nettie
should come often and see them, and that they should come and see her.
But she only said so to get Nettie away. After she got her she was very
unkind to her, and used to tell her that her mother "was a foolish
woman--not fit to bring her up"--and when Nettie got up to leave the
room, because she couldn't bear to hear her talk against her dear
mother, the old lady would shake her, and bring her back, and sit her
down on the chair so hard as to make her cry with pain, and then force
her to hear all she had to say.

You may be sure that all this made poor little Nettie feel very
miserable. She had nothing to amuse her; she wasn't allowed to drive
hoop, because it was "boy's play;" she wasn't allowed to go to walk,
for fear she would "wear her shoes out;" she wasn't allowed to read
story-books, for fear she "woul