Just then the bell sounded from the schoolhouse, and Amelia and Susan went to their duties, but not with half so glad a heart as Tidy set herself to hers. Down she squatted on the rock, and did not leave the place till her first task was successfully accomplished, and the precious piece of perforated paper safely stowed away for Amelia's inspection. Day after day this process was repeated, until all the letters great and small had been learned; and now for the more difficult work of putting them together. There seemed to be but one step between Tidy and perfect happiness. If she could only have a hymn-book and know how to read it, she would ask nothing more. She didn't care so much about the Bible. If she had known, as you do, children, that it is God's word, no doubt she would have been anxious to learn what it contained. But this truth she had never heard, and therefore all her desires were centered in the hymn-book, in which were stored so many of those precious and beautiful hymns which she loved so much to hear Uncle Simon repeat and sing. Would she ever be so happy as to be able to sing them from her own book? CHAPTER X. LONY'S PETITION. BUT, ah! this is a world of disappointment, and it almost always happens that if we attain any real good, we have to toil for it. Tidy's path was not to continue as smooth and pleasant as it had been. Mr. and Mrs. Lee, by some untoward accident, found out what was going on, and at once expounded the law and the necessities of the case to their children, forbidding them in the most peremptory manner, and on penalty of the severest chastisement, ever to attempt again to give Tidy or any other slave a lesson. What the punishment was with which they were threatened she never knew, for the little girls never dared even to speak upon the subject; but she knew it must be something very dreadful, and though this was a most cruel blow to her expectations, she loved them too well to bring them into the slightest danger on her own account. So she never afterwards alluded to the subject. Her first impulse was to give up all for lost, and to sit down and weep despairingly over her disappointment; but she was of too hopeful a disposition to do so. "I knows the letters," said she to herself, "and I specs I can learn myself. I can SCRAMBLE ALONG, some way." Scrambling indeed! I wonder if any of you, little folks, would be willing to undertake it. In her trouble she did not forget the strong hold to which she had learned to resort in trouble. She PRAYED about it every day, morning, noon, and night. Indeed the words "Lord, help me learn to read," were seldom out of her heart. Even when she did not dare to utter them with her lips, they were mentally ejaculated. Hers was indeed an unceasing prayer.