feelings. 'But Miss Thusa,' says she, 'the only thing that keeps me from
being willing to die, is this child;' meaning Helen, to be sure. 'But,
oh, Miss Thusa,' says she, and her eyes filled up with tears, 'watch
over her, for my sake, and see that she is gently dealt by.'"

A long, deep sigh burst from the heart of the widower, sacred to the
memory of his buried wife. Another heaved the ample breast of the master
for the disclosure of his favorite pupil's unamiable traits.

The young doctor sighed, for the evils he saw by anticipation impending
over his little favorite's head. He thought of his gentle mother, his
lovely blind sister, of his sweet, quiet home, and wished that Helen
could be embosomed in its hallowed shades. Young as he was, he felt a
kind of fatherly interest in the child--she had been so often thrown
upon him for sympathy and protection. (His youth may be judged by the
epithet attached to his name. There were several young physicians in the
town, but he was universally known as _the_ young doctor.) From the
first, he was singularly drawn towards the child. He pitied her, for he
saw she had such deep capacities of suffering--he loved her for her
dependence and helplessness, her grateful and confiding disposition. He
wished she were placed in the midst of more genial elements. He feared
less the unnatural unkindness of Mittie, than the devotion and
tenderness of Miss Thusa--for the latter fed, as with burning gas, her
too inflammable imagination.

"The next time I visit home," said the young doctor to himself, "I will
speak to my mother of this interesting child."

When Mittie was brought face to face with her father; he upbraided her
sternly for her falsehood, and for making use of his name as a sanction
for her cruelty.

"You did say so, father!" said she, looking him boldly in the face,
though the color mounted to her brow. "You did say so--and I can prove
it."

"You know what I said was uttered in jest," replied the justly incensed
parent; "that it was never given as a message; that it was said to her,
not you."

"I didn't give it as a message," cried Mittie, undauntedly; "I said that
I had heard you say so--and so I did. Ask Master Hightower, if you don't
believe me."

There was something so insolent in her manner, so defying in her
countenance, that Mr. Gleason, who was naturally passionate, became so
exasperated that he lifted his hand with a threatening gesture, but the
pleading image