"Here is number fifty-four, Timmins," said the matron of a charity-school to her factotum, as she led in a little girl about six years of age; "number fifty-four; you must put another cot in the long hall, and another plate in the eating-room. What is your name, child?"

"Rose," replied the little one, vailing her soft, dark eyes under their curtaining lashes, and twisting the corner of a cotton shawl.

"Rose!" repeated the matron, in a contemptuous aside, to Timmins; "I knew it would be sure to be something fanciful; beggars always go on stilts."

"I am not a beggar," said the child, "I am mother's little Rose."

"Mother's little Rose?" repeated the matron, again, in the same sneering tone; "well—who was mother?"

"Mother is dead," said the child, with a quivering lip.

"No loss, either," said Mrs. Markham to Timmins, "since she did not know better than to let the child run in the streets."

"Mother was sick, and I had to go of errands," said the child, defensively.

"Ah, yes—always an excuse; but do you know that I am the matron of this establishment? and that you must never answer me back, in that way? Do you know that you must do exactly as I and the committee say? Timmins, bring me the scissors and let us lop off this mop of a wig," and she lifted up the clustering curls, behind which Rose seemed trying to hide.

"There—now you look proper and more befitting your condition," said Mrs. Markham, as the sheared lamb rose from its kneeling posture and stood before her. "Timmins, Timmins!" Mrs. Markham whispered, "don't throw away those curls; the hairdresser always allows me something handsome for them. It is curious what thick hair beggar children always have."

"But I am not a beggar," said Rose again, standing up very straight before Mrs. Markham.

"Look at it," said Mrs. Markham, with a sneer; "look at it, Timmins, it is 'not a beggar.' Look at its ragged frock, and soiled shawl, and torn pinafore; it 'is not a beggar.' We shall have some work to do here, Timmins. Come here, Rose."

"Did you hear me, child?" she repeated, as Rose remained stationary.

The child moved slowly toward Mrs. Markham.

"Look me in the eye."

Rose cast a furtive glance at the stern, hard face before her.

"Do you know that naughty girls, in this house, stay in dark closets."

Rose shuddered, but made no reply.

"Ah, I thought so; you had better remember that. Now, go away with Timmins, and have the school uniform put on; 'not a beggar!' was there ever the like of that?" and Mrs. Markham settled herself in her rocking-chair, put her feet upon the sofa, and composed herself for her after-dinner nap.

As she reclines there, we will venture to take a look at her: not a phrenological glance, for she has a cap on her head; under its frilled borders peep some wiry artificial curls; her lips are thin and vixenish; her nose sharp and long, with a bridge which seems to defy the beholder to cross her will; her dress clings very tightly to her bean-pole figure; and on her long arm hangs a black velvet bag, containing her spectacles, snuff-box, and some checkerberry lozenges, which she has a pleasant way of chewing before the children in school hours. You may know that she expects a call to-day, because she has on her festal gilt breast-pin with a green stone in the center.

"Beg your pardon, ma'am; sorry to wake you," said Timmins, with a very flushed face; "but I can't do nothing with that young one, though I have tried my best. I went up stairs to wash her all over, according to rule, before I put on the school uniform; and when I began to strip her, she pulled her clothes all about her, and held them tight, and cried, and took on, saying that nobody ever saw her all undressed but her mother, and all that sort of thing."

"The affected little prude! and to break up my nap, too!" said Mrs. Markham. "I'll teach her—come along, Timmins."

True enough; there stood Rose in the corner, as Timmins had said; her dress half torn off in the scuffle, leaving exposed her beautifully-molded shoulders and back, while with her little hands she clutched the remaining rags closely about her person. With her dilated nostrils, flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes, she made a tableau worth looking at.

"Come here," hissed Mrs. Markham, in a tone that made Rose's flesh creep.

Rose moved slowly toward her.

"Take off those rags—every one of them."

"I can not," said Rose; "oh, don't make me; I can not."

"Take them off, I say. What! do you mean to resist me?" (as Rose held them more tenaciously about her;) and grasping her tightly by the wrist, she drew her through a long passage-way, down a steep pair of stairs, and pushing her into a dark closet, turned the key on her and strode away.

"Obstinate little minx," she said, as she passed Timmins, on her return to her rocking-chair and to her nap.

"Hark! Mrs. Markham! Mrs. Markham!—what's that groan? Hadn't I better open the door and peep in?"

"That is always the way with you, Timmins: no, of course not. She can affect groaning as well as she can affect delicacy; let her stay there till her spirit is well broke; when I get ready I will let her out myself;" and Mrs. Markham walked away.

But Timmins was superstitious, and that groan haunted her, and so she went back to the closet to listen. It was all very still; perhaps it was not Rose, after all; and Timmins breathed easier, and walked a few steps away; and then again, perhaps it was, and Timmins walked back again. It would do no harm to peep, at any rate; the key was in the lock, and Mrs. Markham never would know it. Timmins softly turned it;—she called,

"Rose!"

No answer. She threw open the blind in the entry, that the light might stream into the closet. There lay the child in strong convulsions. Timmins knew she risked nothing in calling Mrs. Markham now.

"Come quick—quick—she is dying!"

"Pshaw! only a trick," said Mrs. Markham, more nervous than she chose to acknowledge, as she consulted her watch and thought of the visitor she was expecting.

"Take her up, Timmins," said she, after satisfying herself the child was senseless, "take her into my room, and put her on the bed."

"Gracious! how can I?" asked Timmins, looking with dismay at the blood flowing profusely from a wound in the temple, occasioned by her fall; "she looks so dreadful, Mrs. Markham."

"Fool!" exclaimed that lady, as she snatched up the little sufferer in her arms, and walked rapidly through the entry. "That's the door bell, Timmins; that is Mr. Balch; tell him I will be there directly—mind—not a word about the child, as you value your place. I have not forgotten that brown soap business."

The cowed Timmins retired as she was bid; and Mrs. Markham, laying the insensible child on the bed, closed the door of her room and applied the proper restoratives; for her position involved some little knowledge of the healing art. After a while, Rose opened her eyes, but as suddenly closed them again, as they revealed the form of her persecutor.

"You can attend to her now," said Mrs. Markham to Timmins, about half an hour after, as she went down to receive Mr. Balch.

Timmins walked about the room uneasily, for Rose's ghastly face distressed her.

"If she would only speak, or open her eyes!" but the child did neither. Timmins coughed and hemmed, but Rose did not seem to notice it; at last, going up to the bed-side, she passed her hand over her forehead.

"Don't," whispered Rose, glancing round the room as if afraid of seeing Mrs. Markham; "don't try to make me well, I want to die."

"Oh, no, you don't," exclaimed Timmins, more frightened than ever; "that's awful—you won't go to Heaven, if you talk that way."

"Won't I?" asked the child; "won't I go to Heaven and be with my mother?"

"No," said Timmins, oracularly; "no—in course you won't; all of us has to wait till we are sent for; we can't, none of us, hurry the time, or put it off, nuther, when it comes."

"When will my time come?" asked Rose, sadly.

"Lor'! how you talk—don't go on that way; you've got a while to live yet; you are nothing but a baby."

"Shall I always live here?" asked Rose, looking round again, as if in fear of Mrs. Markham.

"You'll live here till you are bound out, I reckon."

"What's that?" asked Rose, innocently.

"Wall, I never!" exclaimed Timmins; "haven't you never heern about being bound out?"

"No," answered Rose, a little ashamed of her ignorance.

"Wall, the upshot of it is, that you are sent away to live with any body that Mrs. Markham and the committee say, and work for them just as long as they tell you, for your meat, and drink, and clothing."

"What is a committee?" asked Rose.

"Why, it's Mr. Balch, and Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Flint, and Mr. Stone, and Mr. Grant, and them."

"Can't you ever get away from the place where they send you?" asked Rose.

"What a thing you are to ask questions. Yes, I spose you kin, if you die or get married—it amounts to about the same thing," said Timmins, with a shrug of her divorced shoulders.

"To whom shall I be bound out?" asked the child.

"Land's sake, as if I could tell; perhaps to one person, perhaps to another."

This answer not being very satisfactory to Rose, she turned her face to the pillow and heaved a deep sigh.

"Haven't you got no folks?" asked Timmins.

"What?"

"No folks? no relations, like?"

"None but Aunt Dolly."

"Who is Aunt Dolly?"

"I don't know; I never saw her till she brought me here."

"Where did she bring you from?"

"My mother's grave."

"Yes—but what house did you live in when she took you?"

"I didn't live in any house; all day long I sat on my mother's grave, and, at night, I crept behind some boards, by the grave-yard, and slept.

"Land's sake, didn't you have nothing to eat?"

"Sometimes—I was not much hungry, my heart ached so bad; sometimes the children gave me pieces of bread and cake, as they went to school."

"What did you do all day at your mother's grave?"

"Talked to mamma."

"Land's sake, child, dead folks can't hear."

"Can't they?" asked Rose, with a quivering lip. "Didn't my mamma hear what I said to her?"

"In course not," answered Timmins. "Why, what a chick you are. If you weren't so bright, I should think you was an idiot."

"What are you crying for?"

Rose kept on sobbing.

"Come now, don't take on so," said the uneasy Timmins, "you are not the only person who has had a hard time of it. I was a little girl once."

"Were you?" asked Rose, wiping her eyes, and surveying Timmins's Meg Merrilees proportions.

"Yes, of course," said Timmins, laughing; "just as if you didn't know that every grown-up woman must have been a little girl once. Do you say those things a purpose, or do they come by accident, like?"

"Did your mother die?" asked Rose, not appearing to hear Timmins's last question.

"Yes—and father, and brother, and sister, and the hull on 'em."

"Did you cry?"

"I 'spose so; I know I was awful hungry."

"But did you cry because your mother was dead?"

"Partly, I suppose."

"When you went to bed, did you think you saw her face with a cloud all around it, and did you call 'Mother?' and did the eyes look sad at you, but stay still where they were? and when you went up toward the cloud and the face, did it all go away?"

"Lor', no; how you talk," said Timmins, as Rose's face grew still paler. "Don't—you make my flesh creep."

"You wouldn't be afraid of your own dear mamma, would you?" asked Rose.

"Lor', yes, if she came to me that way," answered Timmins. "It isn't natur', child; you saw a—a—," and Timmins hesitated to pronounce the word ghost.

"I know you wouldn't run away from it, if it looked so sweet and loving at you," said Rose; "but why did it not come nearer to me? and why did it all fade away when I put out my arms to clasp it? That made me think it couldn't be my mamma, after all; and yet it was mamma, too, but so pale and sad."

"Wall—I don't know," said the perplexed Timmins; "you are beyend me; I don't know nothing about sperrits, and I don't want to; but come here; you've been asking me all sorts of questions, now I should like to ask you one."

"Well," said Rose, abstractedly.

"What on airth made you carry on so like sixty about my washing you? Don't you like me?"

"Y—e—s," replied Rose, blushing deeply.

"Wall, then, what was the matter with you? any scars on your body, or any thing?"

"No," said Rose.

"What did ail you, then? for I'm curious to know; why didn't you want me to wash you?"

"It made me feel ashamed," said Rose; "nobody ever washed me but mamma; I didn't mind my mamma."

"Wall, I'm beat if I can understand that," said Timmins, looking meditatively down upon the carpet; "and one of your own sect, as they call it, too. It seems ridikilis; but let me tell you, you'd better make no fuss here; none of the other childern does."

"Other children?" asked Rose, "are there more children here? I did not hear any noise or playing."

"No, I reckon you didn't," said Timmins, laughing. ("I wish to the land Mrs. Markham had heard you say that;") and Timmins laughed again, as if it was too good a joke to be thrown away on one listener.

"Are their mothers dead, too, Timmins?"

"I dare say—I reckon some on 'em don't know much who their fathers and mothers was," said Timmins.

"They had some, didn't they?"

"In course," said Timmins; "why, you are enough to kill old folks; sometimes you are away beyend me, and sometimes not quite up to me, as one may say, but you'd better shut up now, for Mrs. Markham will be along presently."

"Do you think Mrs. Markham is a good woman?" asked Rose.

"About as good as you've seen," said the diplomatic Timmins, touching the cut on Rose's temple; "the quicker you mind her when she speaks, the better—that's all."

"Do you like her?" asked Rose.

"No—sh—yes—why, what a thing you are to make people say what they don't mean to. I like you, any how. But don't you never act as if I did, before folks, because my hands is tied, you see."

"I don't know what you mean," said Rose.

"Sh—sh—didn't I tell you to shut up? Somebody is as stealthy as a cat;" and Timmins looked uneasily at the key-hole of the door.