ld, if you will go on
so, Augustine?" she would say.

"Well, it is too bad,--I won't again; but I do like to hear the droll
little image stumble over those big words!"

"But you confirm her in the wrong way."

"What's the odds? One word is as good as another to her."

"You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to remember she is a
reasonable creature, and be careful of your influence over her."

"O, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, 'I 's so wicked!'"

In very much this way Topsy's training proceeded, for a year or
two,--Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with her, as a
kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became, in time, as
accustomed, as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia or sick headache.

St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child that a man might
in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. Topsy, whenever her sins brought
her into disgrace in other quarters, always took refuge behind his
chair; and St. Clare, in one way or other, would make peace for her.
From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts and
candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the children
in the family; for Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured and
liberal, and only spiteful in self-defence. She is fairly introduced
into our _corps be ballet_, and will figure, from time to time, in her
turn, with other performers.

CHAPTER XXI

Kentuck

Our readers may not be unwilling to glance back, for a brief interval,
at Uncle Tom's Cabin, on the Kentucky farm, and see what has been
transpiring among those whom he had left behind.

It was late in the summer afternoon, and the doors and windows of the
large parlor all stood open, to invite any stray breeze, that might feel
in a good humor, to enter. Mr. Shelby sat in a large hall opening
into the room, and running through the whole length of the house, to
a balcony on either end. Leisurely tipped back on one chair, with his
heels in another, he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar. Mrs. Shelby
sat in the door, busy about some fine sewing; she seemed like one who
had something on her mind, which she was seeking an opportunity to
introduce.

"Do you know," she said, "that Chloe has had a letter from Tom?"

"Ah! has she? Tom 's got some friend there, it seems. How is the old
boy?"

"He has been bought by a very fine family, I should think," said Mrs.
Shelby,--"is kindly treated, and has