them, ha?" asked his master glancing down at
the miserable apologies for shoes and stockings that but partially
protected the child's feet front the snow whenever he stepped beyond
the threshold.

"They're frosted, sir," said Henry.

"Frosted, ha? Pull off your shoes and stockings, and let me see."

Henry drew off an old shoe, tied on with various appliances of twine
and leather strings; and then removed a stocking that, through many
gaping holes, revealed the red and shining skin beneath. That little
foot was a sight to pain the heart of any one but a cruel tyrant.
The heel, in many places, was of a dark purple, and seemed as if
mortification were already begun. And in some places it was cracked
open, and exhibited running sores.

"Take off your other shoe and stocking," said Sharp, in
authoritative tone.

Henry obeyed, trembling all the while. This foot exhibited nearly
the same marks of the progress of the painful disease.

"What have you done for it?" asked Sharp, looking Henry in the face
with a scowl.

"Nothing but to put a little candle-grease on it at night before I
went to bed," replied the child.

"Come out here with me. I'll doctor you," said his master, turning
away and disappearing through the back door. Henry followed as
quickly as he could walk on his bare feet, that seemed ready to give
way under him at ever step. When he got as far as the kitchen, he
found Sharp waiting for him in the door.

"Here, jump out into that snow-bank!" said he, pointing to a pile of
snow that had been shoveled up only that morning, after a fall
through the night, and lay loose and high.

The poor boy looked down at his crippled, and, indeed, bleeding
feet, and, as may well be supposed, hesitated to comply with the
peremptory order.

"Do you hear, sir?" exclaimed his master, seizing him by the collar,
and pushing him out into the yard. Then catching him by one arm, he
set him in the centre of the snow-bank, his naked feet and legs
going down into it some twelve or eighteen inches.

"Now stand there until I tell you to come out!"

The child did not scream, for he had already learned to bear pain
without uttering even the natural language of suffering; although
the agony he endured for the next minute was terrible. At the end of
that time, a motion of the head of his master gave him to understand
that the ordeal was over.

"Now take that bucket of cold water, and let him put his feet into
it," said he to a li