spot where I had been standing, and passing through a rustic gateway
at the end of the walk, I flung my innocent water-pot, with a gesture
of desperate anger, in among the cedar-bushes that skirted the
causeway leading into the lawn, and passed into the house.

It has been written, that "nothing like the heavy step betrays the
heavy heart," and if this be true, the matter of weight regarding the
seat of my affections, on this particular morning, was not a trivial
one. With an inflamed and spiteful wilfulness, I stamped my feet with
a louder and heavier tread on each step, as I ascended to answer my
unwelcome summons.

When I reached my step-mother's bed-chamber, the heavy curtain of
padded repp, which was suspended for the prevention of such draughts
as might be smuggled in through key-holes, or other minute openings
caused by an ill-fitting door, was drawn quite across the entrance,
and in my hasty and unforeseeing impatience I pushed it rudely aside
with rough hands and admitted myself within the sacred precincts, just
in time to see myself branded by my own actions, an intolerable little
imp, who, on this occasion, if never before, _was_ "enough to provoke
a saint."

In drawing the curtain so hastily from the entrance, I had pushed the
panels of the door rudely in, which unexpected treatment caused that
oft-abused fixture to swing unusually far back on its hinges, and
knock with a heart-rending violence against the edge of baby's frail
little cot, over which the fretted mother was now bending
breathlessly.

In a moment the terrible nature of my misdeed burst upon me; my