little
Eliza, by whom the evil entered in.

She came, one hot July day, and planted herself quite unconcernedly
beside the professor, and he, looking down into the funny little round
face, beheld a great black-and-blue bump on the forehead. The sight
grieved him to the soul, even before he knew its tragic meaning.

"Did you tumble down, Eliza?" he asked with great concern.

"No," said Eliza.

"Did you bump your head agin something?"

"No."

"Did anybody hurt you?" and already the professor was casting wrathful
glances from boy to boy, well calculated to strike terror to the heart
of the culprit.

"Not much;" said the matter-of-fact little voice.

"I guess 't was her pa done it," spoke up Patsy Linders. "He's a
bloomin' terror when he's drunk."

Without a word, Simon rose and led the little creature into the lean-to,
where he tenderly bathed the bruise in cold water, giving no voice to
the swelling indignation that tore through him. His tone and touch were
but the gentler for that, as he sought to soothe the self-contained
little victim, who, truth to tell, seemed not much in need of his
ministrations.

"My lamb!" he murmured. "My little lamb!"

"Ma said to never mind," the plucky little lamb remarked. "He ain't
often so."

"Do you love your father?" asked Simon, seeking to fathom the blue eyes
for the truth.

The blue eyes were, for the moment, intent upon a swarm of flies
disporting themselves upon the window-pane.

"Do you love your father?" Simon asked again.

"No;" quoth Eliza, "I wish he was dead."

Now Simon Amberley was slow to anger; indeed it may be doubted whether
he had ever in all his life before been thoroughly roused; and perhaps
for that very reason, the surging flood of indignation, so new to his
experience, seemed to him like a call from heaven. All day he fed his
wrath on the deeds of Scripture warriors, reading aloud from the sacred
records, till Patsy Linders exclaimed, enraptured, that "the Bible was a
durned good book, by Jiminy!"

Little Eliza stayed on, as she often did after the school was dispersed,
sure that "her Simon," would find some new and agreeable entertainment
for her.

"Did your father ever hit you before?" Amberley asked casually, as they
strung a handful of painter's-brush into a garland, which it was
thought might prove becoming to Simon Jr.'s complexion.

"Yes," said Eliza.

"More than once?"

"Yes."

"Where did he hit you last time?"

"Here." And