ance of a
merry word she was snapped at as though she had said something bad; and
ebullitions of childish spirits were checked again and again, until their
occurrence became rare. And yet this woman thought herself a Christian,
and believed that, in subjecting to a system of such complicated tyranny
the bright little child who had been committed to her charge, she was
beginning to train the hapless mite in the way she should go.

It was a very simple circumstance which first indicated to "Cobbler" Horn
the kind of training his child was beginning to receive. Happening to go,
one morning, into the living-room, he found that his sister had gone out,
and, for once, left Marian a prisoner in the house. The child was seated
on a chair, with her chubby legs hanging wearily down, and a woe-begone
expression on her face. Taking courage from the absence of her dreadful
aunt, Marian asked her father to give her some of her toys, and to let her
play. Finding, to his surprise, on questioning the child, that she had
been forbidden to touch her playthings without express permission, and
that they were put away in the drawer, he readily gave her such of them as
she desired, and crowned her happiness by remaining to play with her till
Aunt Jemima returned.

This incident created a feeling of uneasiness in the father's mind; but it
was a circumstance of another kind which fully revealed to him the actual
state of things. Passing through the room one evening when Marian was on
the point of going to bed, he paused to listen to the evening prayer of
his child. She knelt, in her little night-clothes, at Aunt Jemima's knee.
The father sighed, as he waited for the sound of the simple words which
had been learnt at the dictation of the tender mother-voice which was now
for ever still. What, then, were his astonishment and pain when Marian,
instead of repeating her mother's prayer, entered upon the recital of a
string of theological declarations which Aunt Jemima dictated to her one
by one!

"Cobbler" Horn strode forward, and laid a strong repressive hand upon
the child; and Aunt Jemima will never forget the flash of his eye and the
stern tones of his voice, as he demanded that Marian should be permitted
to pray her mother's prayer.

After this he noticed frequent signs of the tyranny of which Marian was
the victim, and interposed at many points. But it was only in part that
he was able to counteract the cruel discipline to which Aunt Jemima