was, and my little beauty, all along the gravel, as if it had been a garden-roller. Directly I saw the chaise upset, I ran towards the minx as fast as my legs would carry me; but even then I couldn’t reach her in time enough to save my pretty cherub; and when I got up to it--oh, dear me! if its sweet little face wasn’t scored all over like crackling, and the gravel sticking into her cheeks for all the world like a bit of asphalte pavement. I could have looked over this misfortune, (although, if the courteous reader will believe me, my little Kate has got some of the grits in her cheeks to this very day, and you can feel the gravel under the skin, like the stones in currants,) but it was the woman’s nasty, wicked deceit, in making me believe that she hated the very sight of a man, that set me against her. But I put a stop to those walks in the Park pretty soon. No wonder she was so anxious to take the child out to do it good--a toad! What made me not like to part with her, however, was, that she seemed so head over ears in love with my little beauty, that I felt quite an interest in the woman, and was stupid enough to believe, that if I could only keep her away from that bothering Regent’s Park, and the lawyers’ clerks out of place, that are always lolloping about on the seats there, she would go on very well. Still, notwithstanding all the affection she made such a show of towards my little life, Edward and I used to remark that the child was always crying when it was up in the nursery; and when we asked her what was the reason of it all, leave her alone for having some taradiddle always ready at the tip of her tongue, by way of answer. Oh! then it was either the little love was fretting after its dear mamma, or else its poor teeth were wherreting its poor soul out, and the little Goody Two Shoes was ready to tear its little mouth to pieces, it was! (Was there ever such a double-faced crocodile?) But the mystery was soon cleared up; for one fine morning, a nice old silver-haired gentleman knocked at the door a few minutes after my lady had come in with my pet from its airing, (which had done it _so_ much good, that it had got _such_ an appetite for its little dinner, I couldn’t tell!) and, like a good old soul, said he had called to tell me that he had seen that Miss Sarah of mine (who was _so_ fond of my Kate that she could eat her!) ill-treating the poor little dear so shamefully in the open streets, that he couldn’t help following her home, and informing me of it. Directly the dear old gentleman had gone, I had my little cherub down, and, stripping it, lo! and behold, if the little dear’s white skin wasn’t dappled all over black and blue, with the pinches _that_ deceitful, hard-hearted nurse of mine had given it, till positively it had more the appearance of a little iron grey pony than a human being! Oh! how my fingers _did_ itch to be about the creature!