ne to merit such uncivil treatment?

By and by comes Mr. Cadwallader with a sour face, and orders me to my
chamber, and get a chapter out of Deuteronomy by heart by dinner-time,
"Or you keep double fast for Martyrdom-day, my young master," he says,
looking most evilly at me.

"Young master, indeed," Mrs. Nancy repeated; "young master and be saved
to us. A parish brat rather. No man's child but his that to hit you must
throw a stone over Bridewell Wall. Up to your chamber, little varlet,
and learn thy chapter. There are to be no more counting of beads or
mumblings over hallowed beans in this house. Up with you; times are
changed."

Why should this woman have been my foe? She had been a cockering,
fawning nurse to me not so many months ago. Months!--yesterday. Why
should the steward, who was used to flatter and caress me, now frown and
threaten like some harsh taskmaster of a Clink, where wantons are sent
to be whipped and beat hemp. I slunk away scared and cowed, and tried to
learn a chapter out of Deuteronomy; but the letters all danced up and
down before my eyes, and the one word "Remember," in great scarlet
characters, seemed stamped on every page.

It should have been told that between my seventh and my eighth year I
had been sent, not only to church, but to school; but my grandmother
deeming me too tender for the besom discipline of a schoolmaster,--from
which even the Quality were not at that time spared,--I was put under
the government of a discreet matron, who taught not only reading and
writing, but also brocaded waistcoats for gentlemen, and was great
caudle-maker at christenings. It was the merriest and gentlest school in
the town. We were some twenty little boys and girls together, and all we
did was to eat sweetmeats, and listen to our dame while she told us
stories about Cock Robin, Jack the Giant-Killer, and the Golden
Gardener. Now and then, to be sure, some roguish boy would put pepper in
her snuff-box, or some saucy girl hide her spectacles; but she never
laid hands on us, and called us her lambs, her sweethearts, and the like
endearing expressions. She was the widow of an Irish colonel who
suffered in the year '96, for his share in Sir John Fenwick's
conspiracy; and I think she had been at one time a tiring-woman to my
Grandmother, whom she held in the utmost awe and reverence. I often pass
Mrs. Triplet's old school-house in what is now called Major Foubert's
Passage, and recall the merry old days