again, raining down
blow after blow upon her thin shoulders.

"Take that, and that, and that!" gasped the infuriated woman; "and now go
out and tell every one. And there's another to teach you to speak
properly to me, or you or I leave this house!"

How long the blows would have continued to pour down on Bella no one
knows, had not scream upon scream suddenly rent the air, startling every
one near.

They did not come from Bella herself, for, after the first startled cry,
she made no sound. They came from the three children who had reached home
just in time to be witnesses of the terrible scene, and were frightened
almost out of their senses.

Miss Hender dropped her uplifted hand and sank exhausted and speechless
into a chair. Bella, white and almost fainting, lay on the floor
motionless. At sight of her Charlie began to scream again.
"You've killed our Bella! You've killed our Bella!" he cried, while
Margery ran over to the still heap on the floor. "Bella, look up, look
up! Bella, it's me, it's Margery; speak to Margery!" Tears poured down
her little white cheeks, and one, falling on Bella's, roused her.
Putting out one stiff, aching arm, she feebly drew her little sister to
her and kissed her.

Margery was delighted, for she had really thought Bella was dead, and she
hugged her in an ecstasy of relief. "Can't you get up?" she asked.
"Oh, do get up, Bella."

Bella made an effort but she was too exhausted, and falling back again,
she, for the first time, lost consciousness.

And so, when Tom presently arrived with his father, whom he had rushed at
once to fetch, they found her, with Margery beside her weeping and
beseeching her to speak; Charlie standing at the door, too scared to go
nearer; and Miss Hender seated, white and frightened and ashamed, gazing
at her temper's handiwork, too ashamed to go near to render the child any
aid after reducing her to that, for in her heart of hearts she felt that
after the scene of that afternoon Bella would shrink from even a kindness
at her hands.

Without a word the father strode across and picked his little daughter up.
"Get some water," he said, in a low, hoarse voice to Tom, and, still
holding her in his arms, he bathed the brow and the limp, lifeless hands,
and the pale cheeks, where the scarlet patch across one told its own tale.

Emma Hender rose stiffly from her chair and handed him a soft cloth, but
he would not take it from her. "Keep away!" he said h