ed,
almost fainting, but sullen and unsubdued. The Irishwoman, poor stupid
Kitty Fagan, who had no theory of human nature, saw her over the lean
shoulders of the spinster, and, forgetting all differences of condition
and questions of authority, rushed to her with a cry of maternal
tenderness, and, with a tempest of passionate tears and kisses, bore her
off to her own humble realm, where the little victorious martyr was fed
from the best stores of the house, until there was as much danger from
repletion as there had been from famine. How the experiment might have
ended but for this empirical and most unphilosophical interference,
there is no saying; but it settled the point that the rebellious nature
was not to be subjugated in a brief conflict.

The untamed disposition manifested itself in greater enormities as
she grew older. At the age of four years she was detected in making a
cat's-cradle at meeting, during sermon-time, and, on being reprimanded
for so doing, laughed out loud, so as to be heard by Father Pemberton,
who thereupon bent his threatening, shaggy brows upon the child, and,
to his shame be it spoken, had such a sudden uprising of weak, foolish,
grandfatherly feelings, that a mist came over his eyes, and he left
out his "ninthly" altogether, thereby spoiling the logical sequence of
propositions which had kept his large forehead knotty for a week.

At eight years old she fell in love with the high-colored picture of
Major Gideon Withers in the crimson sash and the red feather of his
exalted military office. It was then for the first time that her aunt
Silence remarked a shade of resemblance between the child and the
portrait. She had always, up to this time, been dressed in sad colors,
as was fitting, doubtless, for a forlorn orphan; but happening one
day to see a small negro girl peacocking round in a flaming scarlet
petticoat, she struck for bright colors in her own apparel, and carried
her point at last. It was as if a ground-sparrow had changed her gray
feathers for the burning plumage of some tropical wanderer; and it
was natural enough that Cyprian Eveleth should have called her the
fire-hang-bird, and her little chamber the fire-hang-bird's nest,--using
the country boy's synonyme for the Baltimore oriole.

At ten years old she had one of those great experiences which give new
meaning to the life of a child.

Her uncle Malachi had seemed to have a strong liking for her at one
time, but of late year