precious things, as "happy as a king" in the work of destruction, and
only hoping that he might not discover one secret little spot in the
corner of the box where her dearest treasure was concealed.

But at length she started, and, with an exclamation of horror, and a
cry like that of pain, she sprang towards her little brother, and
violently wrenched something from his hand. And now the piercing shrieks
of the angry and astonished child filled the house, and brought even Old
Mammy to the room, to see what was the matter with the baby. Mammy
opened the door just in time to witness the severe punishment inflicted
upon little Agnes, and to receive an order to take that naughty girl to
the north room, and lock her in, and leave her there till farther
orders.

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.