"Miss Margaret!" Tillie's words came in hysterical, choking gasps;
"you won't never like me no more when I tell you what's happened,
Miss Margaret!"

"Why, dear me, Tillie, what on earth is it?"

"I didn't mean to do it, Miss Margaret! And I'll redd up for you,
Fridays, still, till it's paid for a'ready, Miss Margaret, if
you'll leave me, won't you, please? Oh, won't you never like me no
more?"

"My dear little goosie, what IS the matter with you? Come," she
said, taking the little girl's hand reassuringly in both her own,
"tell me, child."

A certain note of firmness in her usually drawling Southern voice
checked a little the child's hysterical emotion. She gulped the
choking lump in her throat and answered.

"I was readin' 'Ivanhoe' in bed last night, and pop woke up, and
seen my candle-light, and he conceited he'd look once and see what
it was, and then he seen me, and he don't uphold to novel-readin',
and he--he--"

"Well?" Miss Margaret gently urged her faltering speech.

"He whipped me and--and burnt up your Book!"

"Whipped you again!" Miss Margaret's soft voice indignantly