For this offence, they were forbidden to accompany their parents, on the next Sabbath, to church, but were condemned to close confinement in the house during the long, bright, summer day—­a severer punishment than which, could not have been inflicted.  When the hour of assembling for worship was announced by the old English clock that stood in the corner, the curtains were drawn before the windows; two bowls of bread and milk were placed on the dresser for their dinner; a lesson in the Testament was assigned to Emma, and one in the Catechism to Anna; a strict injunction to remain all day in the house was laid upon both, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson departed, locking the door, and taking the key.  The children soon wiped away the tears that their hard fate had gathered in their eyes, and applied themselves to their tasks, which were speedily committed.  Then the forenoon wore slowly away; they dared not get their playthings,—­they were forbidden to go out doors,—­and the only books in the room were the Bible, Watts’ Hymns, and the Pilgrim’s Progress, which lay on the highest shelf in the room, far beyond their reach.  Noon came at last; the sun shone fully in at the south window, betokening the dinner hour, and then their dinner of bread and milk was eaten.  What were they next to do?  Sorrowfully they gazed on the smiling river, the green corn-fields, the large potato-plats, the grazing cattle, the blooming flower-beds, and the shady walks which led far into the cool recesses of the forest; and earnestly did they long for liberty to ramble out in the glorious sunshine.  As they were gazing wistfully through the window, they saw their playful little kitten, Fanny, dart like lightning from her hiding-place in the garden, where she had long lain in ambush, and fasten her sharp claws in the back of a poor little ground-bird, which had been hopping from twig to twig, chirping and twittering very cheerfully.  The little bird fluttered, gasped, and uttered wailing cries, as it ineffectually labored to free itself from the power of its captor, until Emma and Anna, unable longer to witness its distress, sprang out the window, and, rushing down the garden, liberated the little prisoner, and with delight saw it fly away towards the woods.

Delighted to find themselves once more in the open air, the joyful children forgot the prohibition of their parents, and leaping over the dear little brook with which they loved to run races, they filled their aprons with the blue-eyed violets that grew on its margin.  On they bounded, further and further, and a few moments more found them in the dense wood, where not a sunbeam could reach the ground.  But suddenly the leaves rustled behind them, and the twigs cracked, and there sprung, from an ambuscade in the thicket, the tall figure of an Indian, who laid a strong hand on the arm of each little girl, and, despite the cries, tears, and entreaties of the poor children, hurried them deeper into the forest, where they found