Not so, Fred; defying Mammy to capture him, and laughing at her dismay, he started off on a run, and she after him in full pursuit.  We watched the chase from the nursery-window; and as Fred was none of the thinnest, and Mammy somewhat resembled a meal-bag with a string tied round the middle, it proved to be quite exciting.  But it was brought to an untimely end by the apparition of a pair of spectacles over the fence; said spectacles being the undisputed property of a middle-aged gentleman—­a bachelor, who, we suspected, always stayed home from church on Sunday afternoons to keep the neighbors in order.  With horror-stricken eyes he had beheld only the latter part of the scene, and conceiving the old nurse to be as bad as her rebellious charge, he called out from his garden, which communicated with ours: 

“My good woman, do you know that this is Sunday?—­Depend upon it, a person of your years would feel much better to be quietly reading in your own apartment, than racing about the garden in this unseemly manner.”

Poor Mammy! she was well aware of this before; flushed, heated, and almost overcome with fatigue, she looked the very picture of uncomfortableness; and this last aggravation increased the feeling to a tenfold degree.  At that moment, Fred, unconsciously, stumbled into her very arms; she looked up—­the spectacles had disappeared—­and convinced of this fact, she bore him in triumph to the nursery.

We had all expected personal chastisement, at the very least, but we were thrown into a greater degree of horror and dismay than could well be conceived; Mammy placed her spectacles in her pocket, collected her valuables, and put on her hat and things, to take passage for Ireland.  We hung about her in every attitude of entreaty—­acknowledged our misdemeanors, promised amendment, and an entire confession of all the sins we had ever perpetrated.  I do think we must have remained upon our knees at least half an hour; never had Mammy seemed so hard-hearted before, and we began to think that she might be in earnest after all.  We begged her to whip us—­lock us up—­anything but leave us; and at last she relented.  She told us that she considered us the most abandoned children that ever were born; and wished that she had two additional eyes at the back of her head to watch our movements.  We promised to spend the afternoon in learning hymns and verses; and Mammy, having taken her position in the large easy-chair, with a footstool at her feet, tied Fred to one of the legs, as he sat on a low bench at her side, and made us all study.  We succeeded pretty well; although considerably terrified at the sharp looks which Mammy from time to time bestowed upon us.