THE MISCHIEF MAKER.

  ALTHOUGH Mrs. Hall loved the little black girl, there were a great many people who did not like her. The servants were jealous of her, and Mary Clay took a great dislike to her. She used to call her names, and laugh at her black skin and woolly hair.

  "I wonder what you are come here for, you little ugly nigger," said she, one day; "we must take care how we leave our things about, for they say all black folks steal."

  "O Mary, indeed I would not steal," returned Cassy; "I never stole any thing in my life."

  "Don't tell me," said Mary; "if you have never stole, it is only because you could not find any thing to steal. You will be in prison before very long, I dare say; and then what will be the use of all your fine clothes, you mean little slave."

  Poor Cassy burst into tears, this treatment was so different from any she had ever before received. At dinner, Mrs. Hall noticed her red eyes, and inquired what was the matter. Cassy told her what had passed, and Mrs. Hall comforted her by saying she did not believe she would take any thing that did not belong to her; she desired her to repeat the sixth commandment, which she had learned in her catechism, "Thou shalt not steal;" and she explained to her how she would offend God by breaking it.

  Mrs. Hall afterwards spoke to Mary, and reproved her for behaving so cruelly. Mary told her she was sorry, and would not do so again; but instead of really feeling sorry, she was very angry with Cassy for telling of her, and determined to do all she could to injure her in Mrs. Hall's good opinion.

  Cassy was particularly fond of gay colors; and any little pieces of silk or velvet that were given to her she thought a great deal of, and

excepting three or four pieces, which were of larger size than the others, and which Mrs. Hall said she would reserve for another time.

  Cassy admired the larger pieces exceedingly, they were so gay and

  Several days after this, Mary thought she would look into the bag to see if the pieces of silk were gone,—as she fully expected to find the case. Instead, therefore, of going straight home to her dinner, as usual, she went only a short distance, and then turned back; and after ascertaining that Mrs. Hall and Cassy were in the garden, she ran up stairs, and opened the bag; but, to her great disappointment, there lay the pieces of silk on the top, just as Cassy had put them in.

  It would have been well for Mary if she had closed the bag, and gone away to her dinner. But Satan, who is always ready to persuade us to do wrong, was at hand, and tempted her on and on. She had sinned in suspecting Cassy of stealing. Satan had thus found an entrance into her heart, and would not leave her without doing further mischief. She took out the scraps of silk, and closed the bag. With hurried steps and a fluttering heart she ran to Cassy's room, and concealed them under some linen in her clothes drawer. She then left the house, fearing and wondering whether any one had seen her. She thought not that God's eye was upon her; she thought only of being revenged on a poor little innocent child, in a strange country, and almost without friends.

  Mary fully expected that Mrs. Hall would go to Cassy's drawer, as she often did, and discover the pieces; but it so happened that either she did not go for some weeks, or else she went, but did not notice them. Mary, therefore, became very impatient, fearing that her scheme would fail; she did not know what to do to draw Mrs. Hall's attention to them, as she was anxious to do, as she was afraid of Cassy's finding them herself, and in her surprise showing them to Mrs. Hall.

  One day, when she and Mrs. Hall were alone in Cassy's room, Cassy having gone out on an errand for Mrs. Hall, Mary observed that Cassy's drawer was partly open; so she slipped to it when Mrs. Hall was engaged in writing, and pulled forward the pieces of silk.

  "O, how pretty! " said she, unrolling the little bundle, and going towards Mrs. Hall. "I wonder where Cassy got these from."

  Mrs. Hall instantly recognized the pieces of silk; for she had

  "They are not mine, mother; they were in your bag."

  "But they were found in your drawer," continued Mrs. IHall.

  "In my drawer!" exclaimed the astonished child. "You did not give them to me."

  "No; I know I did not give them to you; therefore how did they come in your drawer?"

  "Indeed, mother," said Cassy, "I am sure I do not know. I am sure I did not put them there."

  "Cassy," said Mrs. Hall, sorrowfully, "are you speaking the truth?"

  "Mother," said the little girl, as the tears chased each other down her black cheeks, "I am sure I never will tell you a story—you, who are so very good and kind to me."

  Mrs. Hall now looked towards Mary, who was gazing through the window with a confused air.

  "Mary," said she, "have you seen these since the day I put them into the bag?"

  "No, ma'am," said she firmly, but without looking at Mrs. Hall.

  "How came you to find them?"

  I was passing by the drawer, and saw them peeping out."

  "That could not be the case," returned Mrs. Hall, seriously; "I was close by just before you spoke, and noticed the open drawer; but there was nothing of the kind to be seen there."

  "O, yes, I am sure there was; indeed, there was! I know Cassy wanted them, and I dare say she took them."

  I don't believe she did take them, Mary," said Mrs. Hall, who recollected what had passed between the two children a few weeks previously. "I hope you did not put them there; if you did, as I fear is the case, you have acted most cruelly towards this poor little girl. Mary, if you were in a strange country, with only one friend, would you like some one to try to make that one friend hate you? Supposing I had believed that Cassy had taken them, and I had sent her to prison, or sold her as a slave, should you have been glad? Would you not be sorry to see a fellow-creature suffer without deserving it? You have father, mother, and plenty of friends, yet you are jealous because Cassy has one. I am very sorry you should have such an unkind feeling in your heart."

  "I don't care whether you love her or not," answered Mary, sullenly; "but I don't see what business niggers have among white people."

  "Mary," returned Mrs. Hall, quietly, "do you not know that God made us all of the same flesh and blood? Do you think that, because you happen to be white, God loves you better than Cassy, who is black? No, indeed! God loves those who are good! Who is the best, you or Cassy ? You have told a story; you have tried to ruin Cassy in my estimation, that she might lose the only friend she has. I do not think that Cassy would tell a falsehood; and she tries to do what she knows is right. I assure you, Mary, at this moment God loves the black girl better than he does the white one."

  Mrs. Hall then told her, that as she considered herself too good to be with Cassy, she had better not come to school any more. Mary angrily left the room; she was very much annoyed at the turn the affair had taken, and would willingly have undone it all. She liked learning, and had really been very glad to be instructed with Cassy. She had studied with Mrs. Hall many things that were not taught in the village school; not only had she begun to play on the piano, but Mrs. Hall had promised to teach her to draw in the spring.

  On inquiry, Mrs. Hall discovered that for some time Mary had been in the habit of tormenting poor Cassy; and she had told the servants that had it not been for the learning she got, she would never come into the house again.