ng to see
my papa. I have business with him."

"Well, your business is not mine, Miss; but somehow, I think you have
been cheating your schoolmistress. But come your way, till I can see for
somebody to go with you."

I only wish some of my young readers could have seen Miss Bruce, how
simple she looked when she followed the coachman into the inn. She
wished to be at school, and with Miss Damer again--but it was then too
late.

And here I would advise young people to beware of the first wrong step,
for it generally leads to trouble and mortification, and often to
disgrace.

Miss Bruce stood some time unnoticed at the entrance of a large room,
partitioned into boxes. Waiters and travellers just looked at the young
lady, and then passed on: people were too much engaged, with dishes,
papers, packages, and glasses, to attend to the little stranger.

At length, however, one solitary gentleman, who perhaps had daughters
of his own, took compassion upon the forlorn traveller.

"Come hither, my dear, and sit by me."

Miss Bruce gladly accepted the offer, for she was a strange figure for a
stage coach passenger. Her white frock was rumpled, and in a sad state
from the blow she had received; the tippet was in the same style; her
old green silk garden bonnet hung half off her head. One of her long
sleeves she had untied from her tippet, and taken it off; the other
remained. Garden gloves, cut at the fingers, completed the dress. Thus
neatly attired, in an hour and ten minutes after her arrival in London
she was ushered by a new footman into her father's study, where he was
seated reading a pamphlet. In a moment he turned the book open upon the
table, raised one of the candlesticks above his head, and with a keen
satirical look exclaimed, "what runaway is this?"

"Papa, it is I!" This was said in a very trembling accent.

"And pray who is I, that comes thus attired, and unasked at this
unseasonable hour? Only wants three minutes of eleven," said Mr. Bruce
as he fixed his eyes upon the time-piece. "With whom did you travel?"

"With a little boy, and a great man, papa, and a little woman, with a
baby and a lapdog."

As Miss Bruce was speaking, she would have given a trifle to have been
at school again.

"A goodly company indeed, young lady! By this I conclude that you have
disgraced yourself! Sit here" (pointing to a chair behind the door); "it
is the only place for idle, thoughtless truants. And now give a reason
for