Agnes had not spoken before, when rebuked by her mother; but now, raising her mild blue eyes, all dimmed by tears, to her mother’s face, she said: 

“Oh, mamma! it was papa’s hair!—­it was that soft curl I cut from his forehead, as he lay in his coffin, Lewie was going to tear the paper!” But even this touching appeal, which should have found its way to the young widow’s heart, was unheeded by her—­perhaps, in the storm of passion, it was unheard; and Agnes was led away by Mammy to a cold, unfurnished room, where she had been doomed to spend many an hour, when Lewie was cross; while the fretful and half-sick child, now tired of his last play-thing, was taken in his mother’s arms, and rocked till he fell into a slumber, undisturbed for perhaps an hour, except by a start, when the tears from his mother’s cheek fell on his—­tears caused by the well-imagined sufferings of the heroine of her romance.

All the time Mammy was leading little Agnes through the wide hall, and up the broad stairs and—­along the upper hall to the door of the “North Room,” the good old woman was wiping her eyes with her apron, and trying to choke down something in her throat which prevented her speaking the words of comfort she wished to say to the sobbing child.  When they reached the door of the room in which little Agnes was to be a prisoner, Mammy sat down, and taking the child in her lap she took off her own warm shawl and pinned it carefully around her, and as she stooped to kiss her, Agnes saw the tears upon her cheek.

“Why do you cry, Mammy?” she asked, “mamma has not scolded you to-day, has she?”

“No, love.”

“Are you crying then because you are so sorry for me?”

“That’s it, my darling, I cannot bear to lock you up here alone for the day and leave you so sorrowful, you that ought to be as blithe as the birds in spring.”

“Mammy, do you think I deserve this punishment?”

“No, sweet, if I must say the truth, I do not think you ever deserve any punishment at all.  But I must not say anything that’s wrong to you, about what your mamma chooses to do.”

“Then, Mammy, don’t you think I ought to be happier than if I had really been naughty and was punished for it.  Don’t you remember Mammy the verse you taught me from the Bible the last time Lewie was so fretful and mamma sent you to lock me up here.  I learned it afterwards from my Bible:  hear me say it:—­”

’For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently; but if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.’

“Now, Mammy, I did try to be patient with Lewie, and I gave him everything I had, but I could not let him destroy that lock of papa’s hair.  I am afraid I was rough then, I hope I did not hurt his little hand.  Mammy, do you think mamma loves me any.”

“How could anybody help loving you, my darling!”