arning, don't you think
you'd better try?" asked Lucy.

"I don't think mother would let me; and I must hurry now, or she'll be
angry at me keeping her waiting, with the baby to mind."

But just then a large dog, rushing down the hill, upset poor Nelly's
pail.

"Holy Mary!" she exclaimed, using the ejaculation she had been
accustomed to hear from infancy, "there's all my water spilt;" and
seizing her pail, she had run down to refill it, before Lucy was able
to begin an intended reproof.

The girls watched her refill her pail, and return towards the cottage
by a nearer though steeper path. Mrs. Connor, a tall, bony,
discontented-looking woman, had come to the door to look for Nelly.
Not seeing the young ladies, who were approaching the house from the
other side, she screamed out in a harsh voice as Nelly approached:

"What have you been doing all this time, keeping me waiting with the
child in my arms?"

"It was a dog," began Nelly, setting down her pail. But before she
could finish her sentence she was roughly shaken, and sharp blows
descended about her ears.

"I'll teach you to spend your time playing with dogs when I'm waiting
for you. There, be off, and mind the baby;" and Nelly, putting up her
hands to her face, ran crying into the house.

Lucy stood for an instant pale with indignation, and then, the impulse
of the moment making her forget all her aunt's warnings as to being
conciliatory, and her own prudent resolves, she announced her presence
by exclaiming, in a voice unsteady with emotion: "Mrs. Connor, it's a
shame to beat Nelly like that, when she hasn't been doing any harm. It
was my fault she was so long, for I stopped her to speak to her, and
then a dog overturned her pail."

Mrs. Connor was startled at finding there had been spectators of her
violence; but she did not betray any shame she might have felt, and
coolly regarding Lucy, she replied:

"Well, I don't see what business it is of yours, anyhow. If young
ladies hain't nothin' better to do than meddle with other folks'
children, they'd better let that be!"

"What an impertinent woman!" said Stella, quite loud enough for her to
hear. "Lucy, can't you come away and let her alone?"

But Lucy, though a good deal discomposed by her reception, was
determined not to be easily moved from her object; and having by this
time remembered her conciliatory resolve, she said, as quietly as she
could:

"Mrs. Connor, my father is Mr. Raymond, the cler