“No, sir.  I intend to punish you for your cruelty.  You tyrannized over that helpless little girl, because you were the strongest.  I think I have more strength than you, and you shall feel how pleasant such conduct is.”

Untying the cane, she raised it in the air, and threw it with all the force she could command into the middle of the water.

“Now if you want it, wade in with your best boots and Sunday clothes and get it; and go home and tell your parents, if you have any, that you are a bad, rude, ugly-behaved boy.  When you need your toy, think of that hat.”

The cane had sunk instantly, and with a sullen scowl of rage at her, and a grimace at the occupant of the carriage, the boy walked sulkily away.

With her handkerchief, Mrs. Orme wiped off the water that adhered to the hat, squeezed and shook out the ribbons and laid it upon the afghan, in reach of the fingers that more nearly resembled claws than the digits of a human hand.

“Don’t cry, dear.  It will soon dry now.”

The solemn black eyes, still glistening with tears, stared up at her, and impelled by that peculiar pitying tenderness that hovers in the hearts of all mothers, Mrs. Orme bent down and gently smoothed the elfish locks around the sallow forehead.

“Has your nurse run away and left you?  Don’t be afraid; nothing shall trouble you.  I will stay with you till she comes back.”

“Hellene is gone to buy candy,” said the dwarf, timidly,

“My dear, what is your name?”

“Maud Ames Laurance.”

The stranger had compassionately taken one of the thin hands in her own, but throwing it from her as if it had been a serpent, she recoiled, involuntarily pushing the carriage from its resting-place.  It rolled a few steps and stopped, while she stood shuddering.

Her first impulse was to hurry away; the second was more feminine in its promptings, and conquered.  Once more she approached the unfortunate child, and scrutinized her, with eyes that gradually kindled into a blaze.

She bore in no respect the faintest resemblance to her father, but Mrs. Orme fancied she traced the image of the large-featured bold-eyed mother; and as she contrasted this feeble deformed creature with the remembered face and figure of her own beautiful darling girl, a bitter but intensely triumphant laugh broke suddenly on the air.

“Maud Ames Laurance!  A proud name truly—­and royally you grace it!  Ah, Nemesis!  Christianity would hunt you down as a pagan myth, but all honour, glory to you, incorruptible pitiless Avenger!  Accept my homage, repay my wrongs, and then demand in sacrificial tribute what you will, though it were my heart’s best blood!  Aha! will she lend lustre to the family name?  Shall the splendour of her high-born aristocratic beauty gild the crime that gave her being?  Yes verily, it seems that after all, even for me the Mills of the Gods do not forget to grind. ’The time of their visitation will come, and that inevitably; for, it is always true, that if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge’ Command my lifelong allegiance, oh Queenly Nemesis!”