stone.

As she sat longing for school to be over, that she might follow a plan
which had a glimmer of hope in it, stupified with her labouring
thoughts, and overcome with wretchedness, she fell fast asleep. She was
roused by a smart blow from the taws, flung with unerring aim at the
back of her bare bended neck. She sprang up with a cry, and, tottering
between sleep and terror, proceeded at once to take the leather snake
back to the master. But she would have fallen in getting over the form
had not Alec caught her in his arms. He re-seated her, and taking the
taws from her trembling hand, carried it himself to the tyrant. Upon
him Malison's fury, breaking loose, expended itself in a dozen blows on
the right hand, which Alec held up without flinching. As he walked to
his seat, burning with pain, the voice of the master sounded behind
him; but with the decree it uttered, Alec did not feel himself at
liberty to interfere.

"Ann Anderson," he bawled, "stand up on the seat."

With trembling limbs, Annie obeyed. She could scarcely stand at first,
and the form shook beneath her. For some time her colour kept
alternating between crimson and white, but at last settled into a
deadly pallor. Indeed, it was to her a terrible punishment to be
exposed to the looks of all the boys and girls in the school. The elder
Bruce tried hard to make her see one of his vile grimaces, but, feeling
as if every nerve in her body were being stung with eyes, she never
dared to look away from the book which she held upside down before her
own sightless eyes.--This pillory was the punishment due to falling
asleep, as hell was the punishment for forgetting God; and there she
had to stand for a whole hour.

"_What a shame! Damn that Malison!_" and various other subdued
exclamations were murmured about the room; for Annie was a favourite
with most of the boys, and yet more because she was the General's
sweetheart, as they said; but these ebullitions of popular feeling were
too faint to reach her ears and comfort her isolation and exposure.
Worst of all, she had soon to behold, with every advantage of position,
an outbreak of the master's temper, far more painful than she had yet
seen, both from its cruelty and its consequences.

A small class of mere children, amongst whom were the orphan Truffeys,
had been committed to the care of one of the bigger boys, while the
master was engaged with another class. Every boy in the latter had
already had his sh