Jane had now nothing to do but to communicate these arrangements; but so much did she dread the tempest she knew the intelligence would produce, that she suffered the day to wear away without opening her lips on the subject. The next day arrived; the time of emancipation was so near, she felt her spirits rise equal to the disagreeable task. The family were assembled in the 'dwelling room;' Mrs. Wilson was engaged in casting up with her son David some of his college accounts, a kind of business that never increased her good humour. Martha and Elvira were seated at a window, in a warm altercation about the piece of work on which they were sewing; the point in controversy seemed to be—to which the mother had assigned the task of finishing it. The two younger children were sitting on little chairs near their mother, learning a long lesson in the 'Assembly's Catechism,' and every now and then crying out—"Please to speak to David, ma'am, he is pinching me;"—"David pulled my hair, ma'am." The complainants either received no notice, or an angry rebuke from the mother. Jane was quietly sewing, and mentally resolving that she would speak on the dreaded subject the moment her aunt had finished the business at which she was engaged. Mrs. Wilson's temper became so much ruffled that she could not understand the accounts; so shuffling the papers all together into her desk, and turning the key, she said angrily to her son, 'her eldest hope,' "you will please to bear in mind, sir, that all these extravagant bills
