'It's a wonder she didn't,' scornfully returned his brother; 'it would have been such a nice chance. She don't get such a chance as _that_ every day. There wouldn't have been any fun in it if she had, though; for I tell you what it is,' he continued, looking about on his hands for sundry marks and dents left thereon by the nails of his mother, 'I tell you what it is, Harry, when she gets hold of a feller, she digs right in. She pounds us more than half the time for just nothing at all, only because she gets mad and likes to do it. To be sure, I get mad myself sometimes, and say ugly words, and ought to be whipped; but you, _you_ never do anything to be whipped for, and _she_,' proceeded the indignant little fellow, with an emphasis of immeasurable scorn on that personal pronoun, '_she_ to go to work and pound a little, pale fellow like you! Why, she ought to be ashamed of herself. I get so mad sometimes when she gets to whipping us, and pa comes to take us away, that I think if he would pound her just as hard as she pounds us, and just long enough to let us see how good it feels, I wouldn't care a bit--I'd just like it: but he don't never; he only trembles all over and gets very white, sets her down in a chair, and takes us out of the room--buys us playthings, or tells us stories to stop our crying, and that's the end of it until next time.' Poor Harry! the color had faded from his face, the light from his eyes. That deep shadow of inexpressible mournfulness had again crept into them. Memory of such scenes, as are never garnered up in the breasts of happy childhood, shadowed his face and heart. His short-lived happiness was over. He made no reply to his brother, but sat motionless, gazing at the sky with a searching, yearning, far-off gaze. Looking at the two young faces turned upward, it would have been hard to say which was the saddest. Young as they were, traces of the working of the curse which had blighted their lives, were plainly visible in both. Both were equally pale and thoughtful, both robbed of the brightness and gayety belonging to their years, only varying in expression as they varied in temperament. The look of meek and patient endurance on the face of the younger spoke of a nature that wrong and suffering might crush, but could never rouse to anger or resentment--of a heart that would break, if must be, but would patiently lie down and die. The scornful defiance flashing ever and anon in the face of the elder brother, the immeasurable bitterness mingling with its sadness, showed a proud and fiery temperament that could be goaded to desperation.