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Beg your pardon, ma'am; sorry to wake you,” said Timmins, with a very flushed face; "but I can't do nothing with that young one, though I have tried my best. I went up stairs to wash her all over, according to rule, before I put on the school uniform; and when I began to strip her, she pulled her clothes all about her, and held them tight, and cried, and took on, saying that nobody ever saw her all undressed but her mother, and all that sort of thing."

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"The affected little prude! and to break up my nap, too!" said Mrs. Markham. "I'll teach her-come along, Timmins."

True enough; there stood Rose in the corner, as Timmins had said; her dress half torn off in the scuffle, leaving exposed her beautifully-molded shoulders and back, while with her little hands she clutched the remaining rags closely about her person. With her dilated nostrils, flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes, she made a tableau worth looking at.

"Come here," hissed Mrs. Markham, in a tone that made Rose's flesh creep.

Rose moved slowly toward her.

"Take off those rags-every one of them."

"I can not," said Rose; "oh, don't make me; I

can not."

"Take them off, I say. What do you mean to resist me?" (as Rose held them more tenaciously about her;) and grasping her tightly by the wrist, she drew

her through a long passage-way, down a steep pair of stairs, and pushing her into a dark closet, turned the key on her and strode away.

"Obstinate little minx," she said, as she passed Timmins, on her return to her rocking-chair and to her nap. "Hark! Mrs. Markham! Mrs. Markham!-what 'sthat groan? Had n't I better open the door and peep in ?"

"That is always the way with you, Timmins: no, of course not. She can affect groaning as well as she can affect delicacy; let her stay there till her spirit is well broke; when I get ready I will let her out myself;" and Mrs. Markham walked away.

But Timmins was superstitious, and that groan haunted her, and so she went back to the closet to listen. It was all very still; perhaps it was not Rose, after all; and Timmins breathed easier, and walked a few steps away; and then again, perhaps it was, and Timmins walked back again. It would do no harm to peep, at any rate; the key was in the lock, and Mrs. Markham never would know it. Timmins softly turned it; she called,

"Rose !"

No answer. She threw open the blind in the entry, that the light might stream into the closet. There lay the child in strong convulsions. Timmins knew she risked nothing in calling Mrs. Markham now.

“Come quick—quick-she is dying!"

"Pshaw! only a trick," said Mrs. Markham, more nervous than she chose to acknowledge, as she consulted her watch and thought of the visitor she was expecting.

"Take her up, Timmins," said she, after satisfying herself the child was senseless, "take her into my room, and put her on the bed."

"Gracious! how can I?" asked Timmins, looking with dismay at the blood flowing profusely from a wound in the temple, occasioned by her fall; "she looks so dreadful, Mrs. Markham.”

"Fool!" exclaimed that lady, as she snatched up the little sufferer in her arms, and walked rapidly through the entry. "That's the door bell, Timmins; that is Mr. Balch; tell him I will be there directlymind-not a word about the child, as you value your place. I have not forgotten that brown soap busi

ness."?

The cowed Timmins retired as she was bid; and Mrs. Markham, laying the insensible child on the bed, closed the door of her room and applied the proper restoratives; for her position involved some little knowledge of the healing art. After a while, Rose opened her eyes, but as suddenly closed them again, as they revealed the form of her persecutor.

"You can attend to her now," said Mrs. Markham to Timmins, about half an hour after, as she went down to receive Mr. Balch.

Timmins walked about the room uneasily, for Rose's ghastly face distressed her.

"If she would only speak, or open her eyes!" but the child did neither. Timmins coughed and hemmed, but Rose did not seem to notice it; at last, going up to the bed-side, she passed her hand over her forehead.

"Don't," whispered Rose, glancing round the room as if afraid of seeing Mrs. Markham; "don't try to make me well, I want to die."

"Oh, no, you don't," exclaimed Timmins, more frightened than ever; "that's awful-you won't go to Heaven, if you talk that way."

"Won't I?" asked the child; Heaven and be with my mother ?"

"won't I go to

“No,” said Timmins, oracularly; "no-in course you won't; all of us has to wait till we are sent for; we can't, none of us, hurry the time, or put it off, nuther, when it comes."

"When will my time come ?" asked Rose, sadly.

"Lor"! how you talk-don't go on that way; you've got a while to live yet; you are nothing but a baby.” "Shall I always live here ?" asked Rose, looking round again, as if in fear of Mrs. Markham.

"You'll live here till you are bound out, I reckon." "What's that ?" asked Rose, innocently.

"Wall, I never!" exclaimed Timmins; "haven't you never heern about being bound out ?”

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"No," answered Rose, a little ashamed of her ig

norance.

"Wall, the upshot of it is, that you are sent away to live with any body that Mrs. Markham and the committee say, and work for them just as long as they tell you, for your meat, and drink, and clothing." "What is a committee ?" asked Rose.

"Why, it's Mr. Balch, and Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Flint, and Mr. Stone, and Mr. Grant, and them."

"Can't you ever get away from the place where they send you?” asked Rose.

"What a thing you are to ask questions. Yes, I spose you kin, if you die or get married-it amounts to about the same thing," said Timmins, with a shrug of her divorced shoulders.

To whom shall I be bound out ?" asked the child. "Land's sake, as if I could tell; perhaps to one person, perhaps to another."

This answer not being very satisfactory to. Rose, she turned her face to the pillow and heaved a deep sigh.

"Haven't you got no folks?" asked Timmins. "What?"

"No folks? no relations, like ?”

"None but Aunt Dolly."

"Who is Aunt Dolly ?"

"I don't know; I never saw her till she brought

me here."