CHAPTER XXX.
THE MISDEMEANOR—THE PUNISHMENT—ITS CONSEQUENCE—FRIGHT.
The next day Miss Jane, observing my unusual thoughtfulness, said:
"Come, now, Ann, you are not quite free. From the airs that you have put on, one would think you had been made so."
"What have I done, Miss Jane?" This was asked in a quiet tone, perhaps not so obsequiously as she thought it should be. Thereupon she took great offence.
"How dare you, Miss, speak to me in that tone? Take that," and she dealt me a blow across the forehead with a long, limber whalebone, that laid the flesh open. I was so stunned by it that I reeled, and should have fallen to the floor, had I not supported myself by the bed-post.
"Don't you dare to scream."
I attempted to bind up my brow with a handkerchief. This she regarded as affectation.