"O, monstrous!" said Edith; "if I could believe in devils, I should believe you were now possessed. O, it is not natural! so young, and with a woman's nature! You do not love me, then. I have punished you when you have done wrong, and you have not forgiven me: you wish to be revenged. You do not answer. Phoebe! tell me: are you angry that I punished you? God knows it pained me to do so. But your poor grandmother gave you to me that I might try to make you a good child; and if I had not punished you when you did wrong, you would have grown up a wicked woman. God grant you may not be so now! you are already revenged." Phoebe said, very sullenly, "You punished me twice." "Good God! and is it for that you have brought on me this terrible evil? Can such revenge dwell in so young a heart?" Edith walked several times across the room, trying to calm her agitated nerves. The child stood with an expression of obstinate determination in her whole manner. At length Edith went to her, and took her, as she had often done at home, in her arms. "My dear Phoebe, do you remember the day when your grandmother died? I was there by her bedside; and you, a poor, deserted child, were crying bitterly. I took you home to my house. Like myself, you were an orphan; and I prayed to the orphan's Father that from me your little heart might never know a pang of sorrow. You fell asleep in my arms; and since then I have ever loved you almost as though I were indeed your mother, and you were my own child. And you, Phoebe, you have loved me, have you not?" The child was silent. "Do you remember the fever you had soon after? when you were restless in your bed, and I took you in my arms, and all night my bosom was your pillow, and I watched you many nights, and thought not of sleep or fatigue when I held your little hand, burning with fever, in my own all night? Ah! you loved me then; you will love me again, and--" "I never loved you," said the child; "I do not love you now." Edith put her quickly from her arms, and turning to the man who was present, "Take her away," she said; "take the poor child away. O, my God! is it for this I have lavished on her the tenderness of my heart! I warmed her in my bosom, and she has stung me to the quick. O, had I been less indulgent, I might have subdued her stubborn nature. Of what avail has been a life of self-denial, of benevolence? Of what avail that I have striven to enlighten my own mind and to do good to others? In one moment, by that child of my own cherishing, but the creature of my own bounty, I am suspected of a horrible, contemptible crime; humiliated to the very dust. O, my Father! it is too much." She covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears.