“I’m so afraid,” said the child, peeping down the cellar-stairs, with distended eyes, “oh, don’t make me go down in that dark place, grandma.”
“Dark, pooh!” said the old lady; “what are you afraid of? rats? There are not more than half-a-dozen in the whole cellar.”
“Can’t Bridget go?” asked Katy; “oh, I’m so afraid.”
“Bridget won’t, so there’s an end of that, and I’m not going to lose a new girl I’ve just got, for your obstinacy; so go right down this minute, rats or no rats.”
“Oh, I can’t! if you kill me I can’t,” said Katy, with white lips, and clinging to the side of the cellar door.
“But I say you shall,” said the old lady, unclinching Katy’s hands; “don’t you belong to me, I’d like to know? and can’t I do with you as I like?”
“No!” said Ruth, receiving the fainting form of her frightened child; “no!”
“Doctor! doctor!” said the old lady, trembling with rage; “are you master in this house or not?”
“Yes—when you are out of it,” growled the doctor; “what’s to pay now?”