just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had
been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared
bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said
in awful voice, "Boy, take down your pant--"? Well, well, Miss
Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination.

"How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause.

"Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to
the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing.

"No: but--"

"I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. "I hope I
may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of the
Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her
out, that I wouldn't. O how I should like to see her floating in
the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after
her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry."

"Hush!" cried Miss Sedley.

"Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca,
laughing. "He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her
with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of
proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage
from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen.
I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. I have
been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to
talk French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue.