the blinded face without a pang? If the blow with which impatient
Annie flattered herself she was correcting her younger brother had
thrown the naughty little lad out of the boat instead of into the
sailor's arms, and he had been drowned--at ten years old a murderess,
how could she endure for life the weight of her unavailing remorse?

I very nearly killed Philip once. It makes me shudder to think of it,
and I often wonder I ever could lose my temper again.

We were eight years old, and out in the garden together. We had
settled to build a moss-house for my dolls, and had borrowed the
hatchet out of the wood-house, without leave, to chop the stakes with.
It was entirely my idea, and I had collected all the moss and most of
the sticks. It was I, too, who had taken the hatchet. Philip had been
very tiresome about not helping me in the hard part; but when I had
driven in the sticks by leaning on them with all my weight, and had
put in bits of brushwood where the moss fell out and Philip laughed at
me, and, in short, when the moss-house was beginning to look quite
real, Philip was very anxious to work at it, and wanted the hatchet.

"You wouldn't help me over the hard work," said I, "so I shan't give
it you now; I'll make my moss-house myself."

"No, you won't," said Philip.

"Yes, I shall," said I.

"No, you won't," he reiterated; "for I shall pull it down as fast as
you build it."