orful thin,
'taint no good anyhow. You won't miss it, P'liney,' and crushing the
letter into a small wad he put it into his capacious mouth.

It was, as Lemuel said, 'awful thin,' not much like the volumes which
Belle usually wrote. She had not been able to distinguish the writing,
but, of course, it must be from Belle. The two cousins had grown very
near to each other as the years rolled by, and a summer never passed
without some of her uncle's family spending a week or two in Sleepy
Hollow. Those were Pauline's red-letter days--the bright, scintillating
points where she was brought into touch again with the world of thought
and light and beauty.

'Throw it down to me, Lemuel, dear.'

'Can't,' said the boy coolly, 'I'm goin' ter tie it to Poll's balloon,
an' let go of the string, an' then it'll go straight to heaven,' and,
with the letter reposing in his cheek, he began to sing vociferously:--

'"I want ter be an angel,
An' with the angels stand;
A crown upon my forehead,
A harp within my hand."

'Git mad now, P'liney, quick, fer I want that knife orful.'

A cry from Polly made Pauline hurry into the house to find that Martha
Spriggs had slipped while passing the child's couch, and upset a bowl of
scalding milk, which she was carrying, right over the little invalid's
foot. In the confusion which followed, Pauline forgot Lemuel and her
longed-for letter. When she went out to look for him he was gone.

'Give it to me now, Lemuel,' she said, as he came into supper; 'you've
had enough fun for to-day.'

'Can't P'liney. I used it fer a gun wad to shoot a squirrel with, an'
the cat ate the squirrel, letter an' all. Yer don't want me ter kill
the cat, do yer, P'liney?'

'Oh! Lemuel,' she cried softly, 'how could you? How could you do it?'

She sighed sorrowfully. She had tried so hard to make Lemuel a good boy,
but nothing seemed to touch him, and, young as he was, the neighbours
had begun to lay the blame of every misdeed upon his shoulders, and
Deacon Croaker predicted with a mournful shake of his head, 'No good
will ever come of Lemuel Harding. He's a bad lot, a bad lot.'

'Sing to me!' cried Polly, 'the pain's awful!' and taking the weary
little form in her arms, Pauline sang herself back into her usual happy
trust.

She would not tell Belle her letter had been destroyed. She must shield
Lemuel.

'I'm doing my best,' she said to herself, 'God understands.'

'Ain't yer mad yit?'