But her mistress was
inexorable--work before play, she said, always; and Ann must not
forget that she was to be brought up to work; it was different with
her from what it was with Hannah French. Even this she meant kindly
enough, but Ann saw Hannah go away, and sat down to her spinning with
more fierce defiance in her heart than had ever been there before.
She had been unusually good, too, lately. She always was, during the
three months' schooling, with sober, gentle little Hannah French.
She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was almost dark, when a
messenger came for her master and mistress to go to Deacon Thomas
Wales', who had been suddenly taken very ill.
Ann would have felt sorry if she had not been so angry. Deacon Wales
was almost as much of a favorite of hers as his wife. As it was, the
principal thing she thought of, after Mr. Wales and his wife had
gone, was that _the key was in the desk_. However it had happened,
there it was. She hesitated a moment. She was all alone in the
kitchen, and her heart was in a tumult of anger, but she had learned
her lessons from the Bible and the New England Primer and she was
afraid of the _sin_.
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