she sat down upon
the dirty ground, at the side of the afflicted child, without ever
thinking of the blue frock and clean pantalettes she was soiling.

"O, dear, dear!" she cried, shocked at Tom's cruelty. "How wicked he
was! What made him do so,--your brother, too?" Genevieve thought in her
heart that little brother, of whom she so often thought, never would
have done such a thing.

Hepsa looked up half angrily, as she replied:

"You needn't keep telling me he is my brother! I'm sure I don't want
him to be, and wish he wasn't. I don't love him a bit, he always plagues
me so much."

"O, Hepsa, don't say so; pray don't!" cried Genevieve, shocked at
Hepsa's passion. "If he is your brother, you ought to love him, you
know."

"I don't know any such thing, I tell you! You may love him yourself if
you want to; but I guess, when he kicks you, and beats you, and steals
your things, and knocks your mud-houses down, you won't love him. I'd
like to know why _I've_ got to love him?" Hepsa demanded this of
Genevieve in a very fierce manner.

"Because he is your brother I suppose, and because he ought to be good;
and perhaps he plagues you because you don't love him," answered
Genevieve, somewhat perplexed how she should answer the question,
thinking in her own heart Hepsa had a very wicked brother. "At any
rate," she continued, "God gave him to you; and I have read how he tells
us all to love each other."

"I never did," replied Hepsa; "and if God gave Tom to me, I wish he'd
take him back, for I don't want him."

"Why, Hepsa; how wicked you are! You shall not talk so!" almost shrieked
Genevieve. The tears came fast into her eyes, she was so grieved to hear
Hepsa talk in that way.

"But I'm not wicked!" retorted Hepsa indignantly. "I don't know who God
is. Why should I? He never comes to see me. I suppose he comes to see
you, and is some great person; while I am poor and live in a mean house,
and nobody comes to see me, of course." Hepsa looked away from
Genevieve's blue frock, and seemed to be searching for something away
down the street.

Genevieve could not sit still any longer, but, rising, she remonstrated
with Hepsa in this manner:

"God is not a man, Hepsa; and he goes into poor houses as often as into
rich ones."

Hepsa looked very sharply upon little Genevieve as she replied,

"Ha! Don't you be telling me stories; why don't I see him ever, I'd like
to know? Haven't I got eyes?"

"I don't know," said Genev