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were at home, and she waited a little impatiently to start on her

errand of mercy

It was four o'clock when, with her aunt, she arrived at Colonel

Hetherton's and found the family asse the skein of worsted fro with a kitten, whose raceful than her own, as she sprang up and ran to

welcoo with you Pray let us start at once,"

she exclaimed, when, after a few

Lucy was very gayly dressed, enough so for a party, Anna thought,

s effect the white

ht plaid ribbons would have upon the in There was a re so far, and Mrs Meredith

suggested that they should ride, but to this Lucy objected She one, she said, and

hoas she ever to do it if she could not walk such a little way as

that? Anna, too, was averse to riding and she felt a kind of griure, which at first had

skipped along ahead with all the airiness of a bird, began to lag, and

even pant for breath, as the way grew steeper and the path h Anna's evil spirit was in the ascendant that afternoon,

steeling her heart against Lucy's doleful exclamations, as one after

another her delicate slippers were torn, and the sharp thistles, of

which the path was full, penetrated to her soft flesh Straight and

unbending as a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting her ears against

the sighs of weariness which reached the cry of actual pain, she stopped suddenly and

turned towards Lucy, whose breath caly, and whose cheeks

were almost purple with the exertion she had made