tone.

"You are a mean coward," cried the spinster, hurling the ball across the
room with such force that it rebounded against the wall. "You're a
coward with all your audacity, and do tricks you are ashamed to
acknowledge. You've spoiled the honest earnings of the whole winter, and
destroyed the beautifullest suit of thread that ever was spun by mortal
woman."

"I can pay you for all I spoiled and more too," said Mittie, sullenly.

"Pay me," repeated Miss Thusa, while the scorching fire of her eye
slowly went out, leaving an expression of profound sorrow. "Can you pay
me for a value you can't even dream of? Can you pay me for the lonely
thoughts that twisted themselves up with that thread, day after day, and
night after night, because they had nothing else to take hold of? Can
you pay me for these grooves in my fingers' ends, made by the flax as I
kept drawing it through, till it often turned red with my blood? No,
no, that thread was as dear to me as my own heart strings--for they were
twined all about it; it was like something living to me--and I loved it
in the same way as I do little Helen. I shall never, never spin any
more."

"You will spin more merrily than ever," cried Louis, soothingly, "you
see if you don't, Miss Thusa."

Miss Thusa shook her head, and though she almost suffocated herself in
the effort to repress them, tears actually forced themselves into her
eyes, and splashed on her cheeks. Seating herself in a low chair, she
took up the corner of her apron to hide what she considered a shame and
disgrace, when Helen glided near and wiped away the drops with her own
handkerchief.

"Bless you darling," cried the subdued spinster--"and you will be
blessed. There's no malice, nor hard-heartedness in _you_. _You_ never
turned your foot upon a worm. But as for her," continued she, pointing
prophetically at Mittie, and fixing upon her her grave and gloomy
eyes--"there's no blessing in store. She don't feel now, but if she
lives to womanhood she _will_. The heart of stone will turn to flesh
then, and every fibre it has got will learn how to quiver, as I've seen
twisted wire do, when strong fingers pull it--_I know it will_. She will
shed tears one of these days, and no one will wipe them off, as this
little angel has done for me. I've done, now. I didn't mean to say what
I did, but the Lord put it in my head, and I've spoken according to my
gift."

Mittie ran out of the room before the conclusion of the