“Papa liked them,” said Katy, shrinking back.
“No, he didn’t,” replied the old lady; “or, if he did, ’twas only to please your foolish mother; any way they are coming off; if I don’t like them, that’s enough; you are always to live with me now, Katy; it makes no difference what your mother thinks or says about anything, so you needn’t quote her; I’m going to try to make a good girl of you, i. e. if she will let you alone; you are full of faults, just as she is, and I shall have to take a great deal of pains with you. You ought to love me very much for it, better than anybody else in the world—don’t you?”
(No response from Katy.)
“I say, Katy, you ought to love me better than anybody else in the world,” repeated the old lady, tossing a handful of the severed ringlets down on the carpet. “Do you, Katy?”
“No, ma’am,” answered the truthful child.
“That tells the whole story,” said the doctor, as he started up and boxed Katy’s ears; “now go up and stay in your room till I send for you, for being disrespectful to your grandmother.”
“Like mother—like child,” said the old lady, as Katy half shorn, moved like a culprit out of the room; then gathering up in her apron the shining curls, she looked on with a malicious smile, while they crisped and blackened in the glowing Lehigh fire.
But miserable as were the week-days—Sunday, after all, was the dreadful day for Katy; the long—long—long Sunday, when every book in the house was put under lock and key; when even religious newspapers, tracts, and memoirs, were tabooed; when the old people, who fancied they could not go to church, sat from sunrise to sunset in their best clothes, with their hands folded, looking speechlessly into the fire; when there was no dinner; when the Irish girl and the cat, equally lawless and heretical, went to see their friends; when not a sound was heard in the house, save the ticking of the old claw-footed-clock, that stood in the entry; when Katy crept up to her little room, and crouching in a corner, wondered if God was good—why he let her papa die, and why he did not help her mamma, who tried so hard to earn money to bring her home.
The last bright golden beam of the Sabbath sun had slowly faded away. One by one the stars came gliding out. He who held them all in their places, listening ever to the ceaseless music of their motion, yet bent a pitying ear to the stifled sob of a troubled child. Softly—sweetly—fell the gentle dew of slumber on weary eyelids, while angels came to minister. Tears glittered still on Katy’s long lashes, but the little lips parted with a smile, murmuring “Papa.” Sleep on—dream on—little Katy. He who noteth the sparrow’s fall, hath given his angels charge to keep thee.