"I am truly sorry for that poor devil," said Miss Moppet, heaving a deep sigh. "Just think how tired he must become, and how much work he must have to do. O--o--oh!"--a prolonged scream--"he certainly has possession of my sampler"--dancing up and down with pain--"for that needle has gone one inch into my thumb!" "Come here and let me bind it up," said Miss Bidwell, seizing the small sinner as she whirled past her. "How often must I tell you not to give way to such sinful temper? And talking about the devil is not proper for little girls." "Why not just as well as for older folk?" said Moppet, submitting to have a soft bit of rag bound around the bleeding thumb. "I think the devil ought to be prayed for if he's such an abominable sinner--yes, I do." And Moppet, whose belief in a personal devil was evidently large, surveyed Miss Bidwell with uncompromising eyes. "Tut!" said Miss Bidwell, to whom this novel idea savored of ungodliness, but wishing to be lenient toward the child whose adoring slave she was. "Miss Euphemia would be shocked to hear you." "I shall not tell her," said the child shrewdly, "but I am going to pray for the devil each night, whether any one else does or not." "As you cannot work any longer on the sampler, you had best go to Miss Pamela for your writing lesson," said Miss Bidwell. "Pamela is out in the orchard with Josiah Huntington," said Moppet, "and she would send me forthwith into the house if I went near her." "Then find Miss Betty and read her a page in the primer. You know you promised your father you would learn to read it correctly against his return." "Betty is gossiping in the garret chamber with Sally Tracy; surely I must stop with you, Biddy, dear;" and Moppet twined her arms around Miss Bidwell's neck, with her little coaxing face upraised for a kiss. When Moppet said "Biddy dear" (which was her baby abbreviation for the old servant), she became irresistible; so Miss Bidwell, much relieved at dropping so puzzling a theological question as the propriety of supplications for the well-being of his Satanic majesty, proposed that she should tell Miss Moppet "a story," which met with delighted assent from the little girl. Miss Bidwell's stories, which dated back for many years and always began with "when I was a little maid," were never failing in interest besides being somewhat lengthy, as Moppet insisted upon minute detail, and invariably corrected her when she chanced to omit the smallest particular. That the story had been often told did not make it lose any of its interest, and the shadows of the great elm which overhung the sitting-room windows grew longer, while the sun sank lower and lower unheeded, until Miss Bidwell, at the most thrilling part of her tale, where a bloodthirsty and evil-minded Indian was about to appear, suddenly laid down her work and exclaimed:--