nder the lilac
bushes, and look at Miss Thusa's sybilline figure, moving slowly over
the grass, swaying the watering-pot up and down in her right hand,
scattering ten thousand liquid diamonds as she moved. Sometimes the
rainbows followed her steps, and Helen thought it was a glorious sight.

One day as Helen tripped up and down the velvet sward by her side,
admiring the silky white skeins spread multitudinously there, Miss
Thusa, gave an oracular nod, and said she believed that was the last
watering, that all they needed was one more night's dew, one more
morning sun, and then they could be twisted in little hanks ready to be
dispatched in various directions.

"I am proud of that thread," said Miss Thusa, casting back a lingering
look of affection and pride as she closed the gate. "It is the best I
ever spun--I don't believe there is a rough place in it from beginning
to end. It was the best flax I ever had, in the first place. When I
pulled it out and wound it round the distaff, it looked like ravelled
silk, it was so smooth and fine. Then there's such a powerful quantity
of it. Well, it's my winter's work."

Poor Miss Thusa! You had better take one more look on those beautiful,
silvery rings--for never more will your eyes be gladdened by their
beauty! There is a worm in your gourd, a canker in your flower, a cloud
floating darkly over those shining filaments.

It is astonishing how wantonly the spirit of mischief sometimes revels
in the bosom of childhood! What wild freaks and excursions its
superabundant energies indulge in! And when mischief is led on by
malice, it can work wonders in the way of destruction.

It happened that Mittie had a gathering of her school companions in the
latter part of the day on which we have just entered. Helen, tired of
their rude sports, walked away to some quiet nook, with the orphan
child. Mittie played Queen over the rest, in a truly royal style. At
last, weary of singing and jumping the rope, and singing "Merry
O'Jenny," they launched into bolder amusements. They ran over the
flower-beds, leaping from bed to bed, trampling down many a fair, vernal
bud, and then trying their gymnastics by climbing the fences and the low
trees. A white railing divided Miss Thusa's bleaching ground, with its
winding rill, from the garden, and as they peeped at the white thread
shining on the grass, thinking the flaming sword of Miss Thusa's anger
guarded that enclosure, Mittie suddenly exclaimed: