enough answer now and then to the children, but is that an excuse for what Lizzy did, and for the sight I saw?” “But what did you see?” Matilda eagerly inquired. “You have not told us.” “What did I see, miss? I saw the poor old woman sitting shaking on her chair with indignation and rage, her flannel petticoat tied round her neck, she neither able to stir hand or foot, and Lizzy off to her play!” They all felt this act to be of a most atrocious nature, but the picture of the old woman tied up, as it were, in a flannel bag was too much, and the difficulty of restraining their laughter was very great; Leila struggled hard for composure: “It was very dreadful,” she said; “but where is Lizzy now?” “She is not far off,” Dame Burton answered, in a loud tone, as if she wished to be overheard by some one; “not far off, young ladies, and she is experiencing (as you shall see) a little of what she made other people suffer; but she is young, I tell her, and better able to bear it.” She threw open the door of the adjoining room, and there sat little Lizzy, propped up on a high stool in the middle of the floor, her little flannel petticoat tied round her neck, and her little face no longer dimpled with its accustomed smiles, but swelled with weeping; her look of shame and helpless distress, when she saw them enter, was too much; Leila could not stand it, she covered her face with her hands. Selina spoke aside for a few minutes to Dame Burton; “You will not forget to send her to Elmgrove,” they heard her say. “No, Miss Stanley; and I hope you may be able to make more impression on her than I can,” was her answer. Selina, then turning round to where the little culprit sat, undid the string of the little flannel petticoat, took it off, wiped Lizzy’s eyes gently with her pocket-handkerchief, and lifting her down from the high stool, led her to her mother. The poor child was weeping bitterly. She appeared most penitent, and as it seemed better that she should at that moment be left alone with her mother, the young people quitted the cottage. In giving her old nurse an account of her day, which was Leila’s general custom, she mentioned what had taken place with regard to Lizzy, and Amy, who was present, almost started off her chair with astonishment and indignation. “And is it possible,” she said, “that she could treat an old woman in that way? Oh, how very dreadful!”