ill appear to your fickle, capricious
gaze?"

"If you were worth a retort, I'd make one," said Jack, with a glance of
angry contempt on his sister, as he took his cap and left the apartment.

CHAPTER VII.

"Thy haunting influence, how it mocks
My efforts to forget!
The stamp love only seals but once
Upon my heart is set."

Winnie Morris was laying her pretty head on her kind teacher's shoulder,
and pleading, O, so eloquently, with her sweet lips and eyes!

"Indeed, I want to go very much, dear Aunt Debby, and Jack will be so
disappointed if you say no. He sent me to plead, because he said nobody
could resist me. Will you not let me go this once, if I'll promise never
to ask again?"

"The theatre is not a fit place for young girls," said the teacher, with
a serious mien; "by going there they obtain false ideas of life."

"But I won't, Aunt Debby, I'm sure I won't, by going just once."

The good-natured teacher patted the soft cheek of her winsome pleader,
and the gentle act seemed to convince the child that she was gaining her
point.

"O, Debby, Debby!" she exclaimed, throwing her white arms round the good
woman's neck; "you will let me go with Jack to-night, I know."

"For which do you most wish to go: to see the play, or to be with him?"
asked Debby, still delaying the wished-for permission.

"O, to be with him!" answered Winnie; "and I could not be with him
unless I went out somewhere, for brother Wayland is cross at Jack; only
think of it--cross at my Jack! And he asks Mrs. Pulsifer whenever Jack
comes to see me, and then scolds; or not exactly that,--but says I ought
not to associate with a person he does not approve, and that Jack is
wild and unsteady, and won't love me long; but he doesn't know him as
well as I do, or he wouldn't say so, I'm sure;" and Winnie grew
eloquent, and her cheeks flushed vermilion red, while she spoke of her
girlish love. But Miss Deborah's face had assumed a less yielding
expression during her fair pupil's recital.

"So it appears your brother is not pleased with young Mr. Camford," she
remarked, as Winnie ceased; "under the circumstances, you must apply to
him for permission to accompany Master Jack to the theatre."

"O, dear! I wish I had not said a word," sobbed Winnie. "'Tis no use to
go to Wayland, for I know he would refuse my request; so I may as well
m