eful twist; "can't you manage to open the
door quicker?"

"I was up in the garret, and didn't hear the bell," she replied, timidly.

"Then I'll improve your hearing," he continued malignantly, as he pulled
her by the ear; "take that, now, and see if you'll keep me standing at the
door an hour again."

Striding forward into the back parlour, he found his wife holding a small
rattan elevated over little Lizzy in a threatening attitude.

"Will you never mind me? I've told you again and again not to go, and still
you persist in disobeying me. I'll cut you to pieces if you don't mind.
Will you ever go again?" she almost screamed in the ears of the terrified
child.

"Oh, no, mother, never; please don't whip me, I'll mind you;" and as she
spoke, she shrank as far as possible into the corner of the room. "What's
all this--what's the matter, Jule? What on earth are you going to whip Liz
for?"

"Because she deserves it," was the sharp reply; "she don't mind a word I
say. I've forbid her again and again to go next door to visit those little
niggers, and she will do it in spite of me. She slipped off this afternoon,
and has been in their house over an hour; and it was only this morning I
detected her kissing their Clarence through the fence."

"Faugh," said Mr. Stevens, with a look of disgust; "you kissed a nigger!
I'm ashamed of you, you nasty little thing; your mother ought to have taken
a scrubbing-brush and cleaned your mouth, never do such a thing again; come
here to me."

As he spoke, he extended his hand and grasped the delicately rounded arm of
his little girl.

"What induces you to go amongst those people; hasn't your mother again and
again forbidden you to do so. Why do you go, I say?" he continued, shaking
her roughly by the arm, and frowning savagely. "Why don't you
answer?--speak!"

The child, with the tears streaming down her lovely face, was only able to
answer in her defence. "Oh, pa, I do love them so."

"You do, do you?" replied her exasperated father, stamping his foot, and
pushing her from him; "go to bed, and if ever I hear of you going there
again, you shall be well whipped." The tearful face lingered about the door
in hope of a reprieve that did not come, and then disappeared for the
night.

"The children must not be suffered to go in there, Jule; something I've
learned to-day will----" here Mr. Stevens checked himself; and in answer to
his wife's impatient "What have you learned?" replied, "Oh