again."

This observation brought them to the school-house, which was but a trifling distance from the residence of Mrs. Ellis.

They entered the school at the last moment of grace, and Mr. Dicker looked at them severely as they took their seats. "Just saved ourselves," whispered Kinch; "a minute later and we would have been done for;" and with this closing remark he applied himself to his grammar, a very judicious move on his part, for he had not looked at his lesson, and there were but ten minutes to elapse before the class would be called.

The lessons were droned through as lessons usually are at school. There was the average amount of flogging performed; cakes, nuts, and candy, confiscated; little boys on the back seats punched one another as little boys on the back seats always will do, and were flogged in consequence. Then the boy who never knew his lessons was graced with the fool's cap, and was pointed and stared at until the arrival of the play-hour relieved him from his disagreeable situation.

"What kind of folks are these Thomases?" asked Kinch, as he sat beside Charlie in the playground munching the last of the apple-tart; "what kind of folks are they? Tell me that, and I can give you some good advice, may-be."

"Old Mrs. Thomas is a little dried-up old woman, who wears spectacles and a wig. She isn't of much account—I don't mind her. She's not the trouble; it's of old Aunt Rachel, I'm thinking. Why, she has threatened to whip me when I've been there with mother, and she even talks to her sometimes as if she was a little girl. Lord only knows what she'll do to me when she has me there by myself. You should just see her and her cat. I really don't know," continued Charlie, "which is the worst looking. I hate them both like poison," and as he concluded, he bit into a piece of bread as fiercely as if he were already engaged in a desperate battle with aunt Rachel, and was biting her in self-defence.

"Well," said Kinch, with the air of a person of vast experience in difficult cases, "I should drown the cat—I'd do that at once—as soon as I got there; then, let me ask you, has Aunt Rachel got corns?"

"Corns! I wish you could see her shoes," replied Charlie. "Why you could sail down the river in 'em, they are so large. Yes, she has got corns, bunions, and rheumatism, and everything else."

"Ah! then," said Kinch, "your way is clear enough if she has got corns. I should confine myself to operating on them. I should give my whole attention to her feet. When she attempts to take hold of you, do you jist come down on her corns, fling your shins about kinder wild, you know, and let her have it on both feet. You see I've tried that plan, and know by experience that it works well. Don't you see, you can pass that off as an accident, and it don't look well to be scratching and biting. As for the lady of the house, old Mrs. what's-her-name, do you just manage to knock her wig off before some company, and they'll send you home at once—they'll hardly give you time to get your hat."

Charlie laid these directions aside in his mind for future application, and asked,

"What did you do, Kinch, to get away from the people you were with?"

"Don't ask me," said Kinch, laughing; "don't, boy, don't ask me—my conscience troubles me awful about it sometimes. I fell up stairs with dishes, and I fell down stairs with dishes. I spilled oil on the carpet, and broke a looking-glass; but it was all accidental—entirely accidental—they found I was too ''spensive,' and so they sent me home."

"Oh, I wouldn't do anything like that—I wouldn't destroy anything—but I've made up my mind that I won't stay there at any rate. I don't mind work—I want to do something to assist father and mother; but I don't want to be any one's servant. I wish I was big enough to work at the shop."

"How did your mother come to think of putting you there?" asked Kinch.

"The Lord alone knows," was the reply. "I suppose old Mrs. Thomas told her it was the best thing that could be done for me, and mother thinks what she says is law and gospel. I believe old Mrs. Thomas thinks a coloured person can't get to Heaven, without first living at service a little while."

The school bell ringing put an end to this important conversation, and the boys recommenced their lessons.

When Charlie returned from school, the first person he saw on entering the house was Robberts, Mrs. Thomas's chief functionary, and the presiding genius of the wine cellar—when he was trusted with the key. Charlie learned, to his horror and dismay, that he had been sent by Mrs. Thomas to inquire into the possibility of obtaining his services immediately, as they were going to have a series of dinner parties, and it was thought that he could be rendered quite useful.

"And must I go, mother?" he asked.

"Yes, my son; I've told Robberts that you shall come up in the morning," replied Mrs. Ellis. Then turning to Robberts, she inquired, "How is Aunt Rachel?"

At this question, the liveried gentleman from Mrs. Thomas's shook his head dismally, and answered: "Don't ask me, woman; don't ask me, if you please. That old sinner gets worse and worse every day she lives. These dinners we're 'spectin to have has just set her wild—she is mad as fury 'bout 'em—and she snaps me up just as if I was to blame. That is an awful old woman, now mind I tell you."

As Mr. Robberts concluded, he took his hat and departed, giving Charlie the cheering intelligence that he should expect him early next morning.

Charlie quite lost his appetite for supper in consequence of his approaching trials, and, laying aside his books with a sigh of regret, sat listlessly regarding his sisters; enlivened now and then by some cheerful remark from Caddy, such as:—

"You'll have to keep your feet cleaner up there than you do at home, or you'll have aunt Rach in your wool half a dozen times a day. And you mustn't throw your cap and coat down where you please, on the chairs or tables—she'll bring you out of all that in a short time. I expect you'll have two or three bastings before you have been there a week, for she don't put up with any nonsense. Ah, boy," she concluded, chuckling, "you'll have a time of it—I don't envy you!"