in his heart, and also something akin to terror.  He dreaded to take this odd-looking child home to his wife Polly; he foresaw contention and mischief in their quiet household.  But he felt as if his word was rather pledged to his gossip, and there was the mother, waiting and expectant.  She was a red-cheeked English girl, who had been in Sam Vaughan’s employ; she had recently married one Burjust, and he was unwilling to support the first husband’s child, so this chance to bind her out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly caught at.

The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales’ mercy, and he had not the courage to disappoint his friend or her mother; so the necessary papers were made out, Sam Vaughan’s and wife’s signatures affixed, and Margaret Burjust’s mark, and he set out on his homeward journey with the child.

The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had some natural affection; she “took on” sadly when the little girl was about to leave her, and Ann clung to her frantically.  It was a pitiful scene, and Samuel Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad when it was over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.

But he had had other troubles to encounter.  All at once, as he rode through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after leaving his friend’s house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the fashion of the period.  Twitch, twitch, twitch!  The water came into Samuel Wales’ eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by began to hoot and laugh.  His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and started up.  For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free himself.  It was wonderful what strength the little creature had; she clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.  Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master’s steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the end of the queue followed it.  Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each of his apprentice’s ears.  Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went back and picked up his hat and ribbon.

He had no further trouble.  The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann effectually.  But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a tingling sensation at the roots of his queue.  He wondered what Polly would say.  The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the horse at his own door, confirmed his fears.  She expressed her mind, in a womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity, "She’s as black as an Injun."

After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been tucked away between some tow sheets and homespun blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole story, and lifted up her hands with horror.  Then the good couple read a chapter, and prayed, solemnly vowing to do their duty by this child which they had taken under their roof, and imploring Divine assistance.