loosed the sail,
and the two children stood on the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant
little wind carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound of
Zephaniah's Sunday-morning psalm:--

"Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear
My voice ascending high;
To thee will I direct my prayer,
To thee lift up mine eye.

"Unto thy house will I resort.
To taste thy mercies there;
I will frequent thy holy court,
And worship in thy fear."

The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there with the white
sails of other little craft bound for the same point and for the same
purpose. It was as pleasant a sight as one might wish to see.

Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long breath, took a
consoling pinch of snuff, sang "Bridgewater" in an uncommonly high key,
and then began reading in the prophecies. With her good head full of the
"daughter of Zion" and the house of Israel and Judah, she was recalled
to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, accompanied by a
general flutter and cackling among the hens.

Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door saw the little boy
perched on the top of the hay-mow, screaming and shrieking,--his face
the picture of dismay,--while poor little Mara's cries came in a more
muffled manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she was found
to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow into the nest of a very
domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors at the invasion of her family
privacy added no little to the general confusion.

The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness as
to anything unpleasant about her pretty person we have seen, was lifted
up streaming with tears and broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously
injured, having fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which
Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic hopes.

"Well, now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey, when she had ascertained that
no bones were broken; "if that ar young un isn't a limb! I declare for't
I pity Mis' Pennel,--she don't know what she's undertook. How upon 'arth
the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I'm sure I can't
tell,--that ar little thing never got into no such scrapes before."

Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse of conscience, the
little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having
repaired the damages of little Mara's toilet, she es