"Yes, miss, I'd like to be able, but I don't know if I'd like the
learning."

Lucy laughed, as did Stella also, and Nelly herself.

"Well, as you can't be able to do it without learning, don't you think
you'd better try?" asked Lucy.

"I don't think mother would let me; and I must hurry now, or she'll be
angry at me keeping her waiting, with the baby to mind."

But just then a large dog, rushing down the hill, upset poor Nelly's
pail.

"Holy Mary!" she exclaimed, using the ejaculation she had been
accustomed to hear from infancy, "there's all my water spilt;" and
seizing her pail, she had run down to refill it, before Lucy was able
to begin an intended reproof.

The girls watched her refill her pail, and return towards the cottage
by a nearer though steeper path. Mrs. Connor, a tall, bony,
discontented-looking woman, had come to the door to look for Nelly.
Not seeing the young ladies, who were approaching the house from the
other side, she screamed out in a harsh voice as Nelly approached:

"What have you been doing all this time, keeping me waiting with the
child in my arms?"

"It was a dog," began Nelly, setting down her pail. But before she
could finish her sentence she was roughly shaken, and sharp blows