The Fireside Story Book, by Maria Edgeworth │ Project Gutenberg

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FIRESIDE

STORY BOOK:

MR. GRESHAM, a Bristol merchant, who had, by honourable industry and economy, accumulated a considerable fortune, retired from business to a new house, which he had built upon the Downs, near Clifton. Mr. Gresham, however, did not imagine that a new house alone could make him happy; he did not propose to live in idleness and extravagance; for such a life would have been equally incompatible with his habits and his principles. He was fond of children, and as he had no sons, he determined to adopt one of his relations. He had two nephews, and he invited both of them to his house, that he might have an opportunity of judging of their dispositions, and of the habits which they had acquired.

Hal and Benjamin, Mr. Gresham's nephews, were about ten years old. They had been educated very differently. Hal was the son of the elder branch of the family; his father was a gentleman, who spent rather more than he could afford; and Hal, from the example of the servants in his father's family, with whom he had passed the first years of his childhood, learned to waste more of every thing than he used. He had been told that "gentlemen should be above being careful and saving;" and he had unfortunately imbibed a notion that extravagance is the sign of a generous, and economy of an avaricious disposition.

Benjamin, * on the contrary, had been taught habits of care and foresight; his father had but a very small fortune, and was anxious that his son should early learn that economy insures independence, and sometimes puts it in the power of those who are not very rich to be very generous.

The morning after these two boys arrived at their uncle's, they were eager to see all the rooms in the house. Mr. Gresham accompanied them, and attended to their remarks and exclamations.

"O! What an excellent motto!" exclaimed Ben, when he read the following words, which were written in large characters, over the chimney-piece, in his uncle's spacious kitchen:

"Waste not, want not!" repeated his cousin Hal, in rather a contemptuous tone. "I think it looks too stingy to servants; and no gentleman's servants, cooks especially, would like to have such a mean motto always staring them in the face."

Ben, who was not so conversant as his cousin in the ways of cooks and gentleman's servants, made no reply to these observations.

Mr. Gresham was called away whilst his nephews were looking at the other rooms in the house. Some time afterwards he heard their voices in the hall.

"Nothing, sir," said Hal; "you were called away from us; and we did not know which way to go."

"No, Sir! Nothing," said Hal, in a careless tone, like one who was well content with the state of habitual idleness.

"Come," said Mr. Gresham, "if you have nothing to do, lads, will you unpack these two parcels for me?"

The two parcels were exactly alike, both of them well tied up with good whip-cord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and after breaking off the sealing-wax began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried first at one corner, and then at another, to pull the string off by force:

"I wish these people wouldn't tie up their parcels so tight, as if they were never to be undone," cried he, as he tugged at the cord; and he pulled the knot closer instead of loosening it.

"Ben! Why, how did ye get yours undone, man?—What's in your parcel? I wonder what is in mine! I wish I could get this string off; I must cut it."

"O, no," said Ben, who had now undone the last knot of his parcel, and who drew out the length of string with exultation, "don't cut it, Hal; look what a nice cord this is, and yours is the same; it's a pity to cut it. 'Waste not, want not!' you know."

"Well, whip-cord! What signifies a bit of whip-cord? You can get a bit of whip-cord twice as long as that for two-pence; and who cares for two-pence! Not I, for one! So here it goes," cried Hal, drawing out his knife; and he cut the cord precipitately in sundry places.

"Lads! Have you undone the parcels for me?" said Mr. Gresham, opening the parlour door as he spoke.

"Yes, sir," cried Hal; and he dragged off his half cut, half entangled string—"here's the parcel."

"And you, Hal," continued Mr. Gresham, "you may keep your string too if it will be of any use to you."

"No, I am afraid not, if this be it," said his uncle, taking up the jagged, knotted remains of Hal's cord.

"But how's this?" said Hal. "These tops have no strings; what shall we do for strings?"

"I have a string that will do very well for mine," said Ben. And he pulled out of his pocket the fine, long, smooth string which had tied up the parcel. With this he soon set up his top, which spun admirably well.

"O, how I wish that I had but a string!" said Hal. "What shall I do for a string? I'll tell you what; I can use the string that goes round my hat!"

"I'll manage to do without one," said Hal; and he took the string off his hat for his top. It was soon worn through; and he split his top by driving the peg too tightly into it.

His cousin Ben let him set up his the next day; but Hal was not more fortunate or more careful when he meddled with other people's things than when he managed his own. He had scarcely played with it an hour before he split it, by driving in the peg too violently. Ben bore this misfortune with good humour.

"Come," said he, "it can't be helped; but give me the string, because that may still be of use for something else."

It happened some time afterwards that a lady who had been intimately acquainted with Hal's mother at Bath, that is to say, who had frequently met her at the card-table during the winter, now arrived at Clifton. She was informed by his mother that Hal was at Mr. Gresham's; and her sons, who were friends of his, came to see him, and invited him to spend the next day with them.

Hal joyfully accepted the invitation. He was always glad to go out to dine, because it gave him something to do, something to think of, or at least something to say. Besides this, he had been educated to think it was a fine thing to visit fine people; and Lady Diana Sweepstakes (for that was the name of his mother's acquaintance) was a very fine lady; and her two sons intended to be very great gentlemen.

He was in a prodigious hurry when these young gentlemen knocked at his uncle's door the next day; but just as he got to the hall door, little Patty called to him from the top of the stairs, and told him that he had dropped his pocket handkerchief.

"Pick it up, then, and bring it to me quick, can't you, child?" cried Hal. "For Lady Di's sons are waiting for me."

Little Patty did not know any thing about Lady Di's sons; but as she was very good-natured, and saw that her cousin Hal was, for some reason or other, in a desperate hurry, she ran down stairs as fast as she possibly could, towards the landing-place, where the handkerchief lay; but, alas! before she reached the handkerchief, she fell rolling down a whole flight of stairs, and when her fall was at last stopped by the landing-place, she did not cry, but she writhed, as if she was in great pain.

"Where are you hurt, my love!" said Mr. Gresham, who came instantly on hearing the noise of some one falling down stairs. "Where are you hurt, my dear?"

"Here, papa," said the little girl, touching her ankle, which she had decently covered with her gown; "I believe I am hurt here, but not much," added she, trying to rise; "only it hurts me when I move."

"I'll carry you; don't move then," said her father; and he took her up in his arms.

Ben looked for it upon the stairs, and he found it sticking in a loop of whip-cord, which was entangled round one of the balusters. When this cord was drawn forth, it appeared that it was the very same jagged, entangled piece which Hal had pulled off his parcel. He had diverted himself with running up and down stairs, whipping the balusters with it, as he thought he could convert it to no better use; and, with his usual carelessness, he at last left it hanging just where he happened to throw it when the dinner-bell rang.

Poor little Patty's ankle was terribly sprained, and Hal reproached himself for his folly, and would have reproached himself longer, perhaps, if Lady Di Sweepstakes' sons had not hurried him away.

In the evening Patty could not run about as she used to do; but she sat upon the sofa, and she said that she did not feel the pain of her ankle so much, whilst Ben was so good as to play at jackstraws with her.

"That's right, Ben; never be ashamed of being good-natured to those who are younger and weaker than yourself," said his uncle, smiling at seeing him produce his whip-cord to indulge his little cousin with a game at her favourite cat's cradle. "I shall not think you one bit less manly because I see you playing at cat's cradle with a little child of six years old."

Hal, however, was not precisely of his uncle's opinion; for when he returned in the evening, and saw Ben playing with his little cousin, he could not help smiling contemptuously, and asked if he had been playing at cat's cradle all night. In a heedless manner he made some inquiries after Patty's sprained ankle, and then he ran on to tell all the news he had heard at Lady Diana Sweepstakes'—news which he thought would make him appear a person of vast importance.

"Do you know, uncle—Do you know, Ben," said he, "there's to be the most famous doings that ever were heard of upon the Downs here, the first day of next month, which will be in a fortnight, thank my stars! I wish the fortnight was over; I shall think of nothing else, I know, till that happy day comes!"

Mr. Gresham inquired why the first of September was to be so much happier than any other day in the year.

"Why," replied Hal, "Lady Diana Sweepstakes, you know, is a famous rider, and archer, and all that—"

"Dear uncle!" cried Hal. "But you shall hear. There's to be a race upon the Downs, the first of September, and after the race, there's to be an archery meeting for the ladies, and Lady Diana Sweepstakes is to be one of them. And after the ladies have done shooting—now, Ben, comes the best part of it!—we boys are to have our turn, and Lady Di is to give a prize to the best marksman among us of a very handsome bow and arrow! Do you know, I've been practising already, and I'll show you to-morrow, as soon as it comes home, the famous bow and arrow that Lady Diana has given me; but perhaps," added he with a scornful laugh, "you like a cat's cradle better than a bow and arrow."

Ben made no reply to this taunt at the moment; but the next day, when Hal's new bow and arrow came home, he convinced him that he knew how to use it well.

"Ben," said his uncle, "you seem to be a good marksman, though you have not boasted of yourself. I'll give you a bow and arrow, and perhaps if you practise, you may make yourself an archer before the first of September; and in the meantime you will not wish the fortnight over, for you will have something to do."

"O, sir," interrupted Hal, "but if you mean that Ben should put in for the prize, he must have a uniform."

"Why, sir, because every body has—I mean every body that's any body; and Lady Diana was talking about the uniform all dinner time, and it's settled all about it, except the buttons. The young Sweepstakes are to get theirs made first for patterns; they are to be white, faced with green; and they'll look very handsome, I'm sure, and I shall write to mamma to-night, as Lady Diana bid me, about mine; and I shall tell her to be sure to answer my letter, without fail, by return of the post: and then, if mamma makes no objections, which I know she won't, because she never thinks much about expense, and all that—then I shall bespeak my uniform, and get it made by the same tailor that makes for Lady Diana and the young Sweepstakes."

"Mercy upon us!" said Mr. Gresham, who was almost stunned by the rapid vociferation with which this long speech about the uniform was pronounced. "I don't pretend to understand these things," added he, with an air of simplicity; "but we will inquire, Ben, into the necessity of the case; and if it is necessary, or if you think it necessary, that you shall have a uniform, why, I'll give you one."

"You, uncle! Will you, indeed?" exclaimed Hal, with amazement painted in his countenance, "Well, that's the last thing in the world I should have expected! You are not at all the sort of person I should have thought would care about a uniform: and now I should have supposed you'd have thought it extravagant to have a coat on purpose only for one day. And I'm sure Lady Diana Sweepstakes thought as I do; for when I told her of that motto over your kitchen chimney, WASTE NOT, WANT NOT, she laughed, and said that I had better not talk to you about uniforms, and that my mother was the proper person to write to about my uniform; but I'll tell Lady Diana, uncle, how good you are, and how much she was mistaken."

"Take care how you do that," said Mr. Gresham; "for perhaps the lady was not mistaken."

"O, I'll answer for it he'll think it necessary," said Hal, laughing, "because it is necessary."

"My dear uncle, but I assure you," said Hal, earnestly, "there's no judging about the matter, because, really, upon my word, Lady Diana said distinctly that her sons were to have uniforms, white, faced with green, and a green and white cockade in their hats."

"May be so," said Mr. Gresham, still with the same look of calm simplicity. "Put on your hats, boys, and come with me. I know a gentleman whose sons are to be at this archery meeting; and we will inquire into all the particulars from him. Then after we have seen him, (it is not eleven o'clock yet,) we shall have time enough to walk on to Bristol, and choose the cloth for Ben's uniform, if it is necessary."

"I cannot tell what to make of all he says," whispered Hal, as he reached down his hat; "do you think, Ben, he means to give you this uniform, or not?"

"I think," said Ben, "that he means to give me one, if it is necessary, or, as he said, if I think it necessary."

"And that to be sure you will; won't you? Or else you'll be a very great fool, I know, after all I've told you. How can any one in the world know so much about the matter as I, who have dined with Lady Diana Sweepstakes but yesterday, and heard all about it, from beginning to end? And as for this gentleman that we are going to, I'm sure, if he knows any thing about the matter, he'll say exactly the same as I do."

"We shall hear," said Ben, with a degree of composure which Hal could by no means comprehend, when a uniform was in question.

The gentleman upon whom Mr. Gresham called had three sons, who were all to be at this archery meeting; and they unanimously assured him, in the presence of Hal and Ben, that they had never thought of buying uniforms for this grand occasion, and that, amongst the number of their acquaintance, they knew of but three boys whose friends intended to be at such an unnecessary expense.

"Such are the varieties of opinion upon all the grand affairs of life," said Mr. Gresham, looking at his nephews. "What amongst one set of people you hear asserted to be absolutely necessary, you will hear, from another set of people, is quite unnecessary. All that can be done, my dear boys, in these difficult cases, is to judge for ourselves, which opinions, and which people, are the most reasonable."

Hal, who had been more accustomed to think of what was fashionable than of what was reasonable, without at all considering the good sense of what his uncle said to him, replied, with childish petulance, "Indeed, sir, I don't know what other people think; I only know what Lady Diana Sweepstakes said."

The name of Lady Diana Sweepstakes Hal thought must impress all present with respect. He was highly astonished, when, as he looked round, he saw a smile of contempt upon every one's countenance; and he was yet further bewildered when he heard her spoken of as a very silly, extravagant, ridiculous woman, whose opinion no prudent person would ask upon any subject, and whose example was to be shunned, instead of being imitated.

"Ay, my dear Hal," said his uncle, smiling at his look of amazement, "these are some of the things that young people must learn from experience. All the world do not agree in opinion about characters; you will hear the same person admired in one company and blamed in another; so that we must still come round to the same point, 'Judge for yourself.'"

Hal's thoughts were, however, at present too full of the uniform to allow his judgment to act with perfect impartiality. As soon as their visit was over, and all the time they walked down the hill from Prince's Buildings towards Bristol, he continued to repeat nearly the same arguments which he had formerly used respecting necessity, the uniform, and Lady Diana Sweepstakes.

To all this Mr. Gresham made no reply; and longer had the young gentleman expatiated upon the subject, which had so strongly seized upon his imagination, had not his senses been forcibly assailed at this instant by the delicious odours and tempting sight of certain cakes and jellies in a pastry-cook's shop.

"O, uncle," said he, as he was going to turn the corner to pursue the road to Bristol, "look at those jellies," pointing to a confectioner's shop. "I must buy some of those good things; for I have got some half-pence in my pocket."

"Your having half-pence in your pocket is an excellent reason for eating," said Mr. Gresham, smiling.

"But I really am hungry," said Hal; "you know, uncle, it is a good while since breakfast."

His uncle, who was desirous to see his nephews act without restraint, that he might judge of their characters, bid them do as they pleased.

"I suppose that means that you've no half-pence," said Hal, laughing, with a look of superiority, which he had been taught to think the rich might assume towards those who were convicted either of poverty or economy.

"Waste not, want not," said Ben to himself. Contrary to his cousin's surmise, he happened to have two-penny worth of half-pence actually in his pocket.

At the very moment Hal stepped into the pastry-cook's shop, a poor industrious man, with a wooden leg, who usually sweeps the dirty corner of the walk which turns at this spot to the Wells, held his hat to Ben, who, after glancing his eye at the petitioner's well-worn broom, instantly produced his two-pence.

"I wish I had more half-pence for you, my good man," said he; "but I've only two-pence."

Hal came out of Mr. Millar's, the confectioner's shop, with a hat full of cakes in his hand.

Mr. Millar's dog was sitting on the flags before the door; and he looked up with a wistful, begging eye at Hal, who was eating a queen-cake.

Hal, who was wasteful even in his good nature, threw a whole queen-cake to the dog, who swallowed it for a single mouthful.

But they thanked him, and refused to eat any, because, they said, they were not hungry.

So he ate and ate, as he walked along, till at last he stopped, and said, "This bun tastes so bad after the queen-cakes, I can't bear it!" And he was going to fling it from him into the river.

"O, it is a pity to waste that good bun! We may be glad of it yet," said Ben; "give it to me rather than to throw it away."

"True, I am not hungry now, but that is no reason why I should never be hungry again."

"Well, there is the cake for you; take it, for it has made me sick; and I don't care what becomes of it."

Ben folded the refused bit of his cousin's bun in a piece of paper, and put it into his pocket.

"I'm beginning to be exceedingly tired, or sick, or something," said Hal, "and as there is a stand of coaches somewhere hereabouts, had we not better take a coach, instead of walking all the way to Bristol?"

"For a stout archer," said Mr. Gresham, "you are more easily tired than one might have expected. However, with all my heart, let us take a coach; for Ben asked me to show him the cathedral yesterday; and I believe I should find it rather too much for me to walk so far, though I am not sick with eating good things."

"The Cathedral!" said Hal, after he had been seated in the coach about a quarter of an hour, and had somewhat recovered from his sickness—"The cathedral! Why, are we only going to Bristol to see the cathedral? I thought we came out to see about a uniform."

There was a dulness and melancholy kind of stupidity in Hal's countenance, as he pronounced these words, like one wakening from a dream, which made both his uncle and cousin burst out a laughing.

"Why," said Hal, who was now piqued, "I'm sure you did say, uncle, you would go to Mr.—'s to choose the cloth for the uniform."

"Very true; and so I will," said Mr. Gresham; "but we need not make a whole morning's work, need we, of looking at a piece of cloth? Cannot we see a uniform and a cathedral both in one morning?"

They went first to the cathedral. Hal's head was too full of the uniform to take any notice of the painted window, which immediately caught Ben's unembarrassed attention. He looked at the large stained figures on the gothic window; and he observed their coloured shadows on the floor and walls.

Mr. Gresham, who perceived that he was eager on all subjects to gain information, took this opportunity of telling him several things about the lost art of painting on glass, gothic arches, &c., which Hal thought extremely tiresome.

"Come! Come! We shall be late indeed," said Hal; "surely you've looked long enough, Ben, at this blue and red window."

"I can show you, when we go home, Ben," said his uncle, "an entertaining paper upon such shadows." *

"It's our old robin, sir," said the lad who had opened the cathedral door for them.

"Yes," said Mr. Gresham, "there he is, boys—look—perched upon the organ. He often sits there, and sings, whilst the organ is playing."

"And," continued the lad who showed the cathedral, "he has lived here these many winters; * they say he is fifteen years old; and he is so tame, poor fellow, that if I had a bit of bread he'd come down and feed in my hand."

"I've a bit of bun here," cried Ben, joyfully producing the remains of the bun which Hal but an hour before would have thrown away. "Pray let us see the poor robin eat out of your hand."

The lad crumbled the bun, and called to the robin, who fluttered and chirped, and seemed rejoiced at the sight of the bread; but yet he did not come down from his pinnacle on the organ.

"He is afraid of us," said Ben; "he is not used to eat before strangers, I suppose."

"Ah no, sir," said the young man with a deep sigh, "that is not the thing; he is used enough to eat before company. Time was he'd have come down for me, before ever so many fine folks, and have eat his crumbs out of my hand, at my first call. But, poor fellow, it's not his fault now; he does not know me now, sir, since my accident, because of this great black patch."

The young man put his hand to his right eye, which was covered with a huge black patch.

Ben asked what accident he meant; and the lad told him that, but a few weeks ago, he had lost the sight of his eye by the stroke of a stone, which reached him as he was passing under the rocks of Clifton, unluckily, when the workmen were blasting.

"I don't mind so much for myself, sir," said the lad; "but I can't work so well now, as I used to do before my accident, for my old mother, who has had a stroke of the palsy; and I've a many little brothers and sisters, not well able yet to get their own livelihood, though they may be as willing as willing can be."

"Hard by, sir, just close to the church here. It was her that always had the showing of it to strangers, till she lost the use of her poor limbs."

"Shall we, may we, uncle, go that way? This is the house; is not it?" said Ben, when they went out of the cathedral.

They went into the house. It was rather a hovel than a house; but poor as it was, it was as neat as misery could make it.

The old woman was sitting up in her wretched bed, winding worsted; four meager, ill-clothed, pale children, were all busy, some of them sticking pins in paper for the pinmaker, and others sorting rags for the papermaker.

"What a horrid place it is," said Hal, sighing. "I did not know there were such shocking places in the world. I've often seen terrible-looking tumble-down places, as we drove through the town in mamma's carriage; but then I did not know who lived in them; and I never saw the inside of any of them. It is very dreadful, indeed, to think that people are forced to live in this way. I wish mamma would send me some more pocket-money, that I might do something for them. I had half-a-crown; but," continued he, feeling in his pockets, "I'm afraid I spent the last shilling of it this morning, upon those cakes that made me sick. I wish I had my shilling now; I'd give it to these poor people."

Ben, though he was all this time silent, was as sorry as his talkative cousin for all these poor people. But there was some difference between the sorrow of these two boys.

Hal, after he was again seated in the hackney-coach, and had rattled through the busy streets of Bristol for a few minutes, quite forgot the spectacle of misery which he had seen; and the gay shops in Wine street, and the idea of his green and white uniform, wholly occupied his imagination.

"Now for our uniforms," cried he, as he jumped eagerly out of the coach, when his uncle stopped at the woollen-draper's door.

"Uncle," said Ben, stopping Mr. Gresham before he got out of the carriage, "I don't think a uniform is at all necessary for me. I'm very much obliged to you; but I would rather not have one. I have a very good coat; and I think it would be waste."

"Well, let me get out of the carriage, and we will see about it," said Mr. Gresham; "perhaps the sight of the beautiful green and white cloth, and the epaulettes (have you ever considered the epaulettes?) may tempt you to change your mind."

The green cloth, and the white cloth, and the epaulettes, were produced, to Hal's infinite satisfaction. His uncle took up a pen, and calculated for a few minutes; then, showing the back of the letter, upon which he was writing, to his nephews, "Cast up these sums, boys," said he, "and tell me whether I am right."

"Ben, do you do it," said Hal, a little embarrassed; "I am not quick at figures."

"Then, by this calculation, I find I could for less than half the money your uniforms would cost purchase for each of you boys a warm great coat, which you will want, I have a notion, this winter upon the Downs."

"O, sir," said Hal with an alarmed look; "but it is not winter yet; it is not cold weather yet. We shan't want great coats yet."

"Don't you remember how cold we were, Hal, the day before yesterday, in that sharp wind, when we were flying our kites upon the Downs? And winter will come yet—I am sure, I should like to have a good warm great coat very much."

Mr. Gresham took six guineas out of his purse; and he placed three of them before Hal, and three before Ben.

"Young gentlemen," said he, "I believe your uniforms will come to about three guineas apiece. Now I will lay out this money for you just as you please, Hal, what say you?"

"Why, sir," said Hal, "a great coat is a good thing, to be sure; and then, after the great coat, as you said it would only cost half as much as the uniform, there would be some money to spare, would not there?"

"Five-and-twenty shillings! I could buy and do a great many things, to be sure, with five-and-twenty shillings; but then, the thing is, I must go without the uniform, if I have the great coat."

"Ah!" said Hal, sighing, as he looked at the epaulettes. "Uncle, if you would not be displeased, if I choose the uniform—"

"I shall not be displeased at your choosing whatever you like best," said Mr. Gresham.

"Well, then, thank you, sir; I think I had better have the uniform; because, if I have not the uniform now directly, it will be of no use to me, as the archery meeting is the week after next, you know; and as to the great coat, perhaps, between this time and the very cold weather, which, perhaps, won't be till Christmas, papa will buy a great coat for me; and I'll ask mamma to give me some pocket-money to give away, and she will, perhaps."

To all this conclusive, conditional reasoning, which depended upon perhaps, three times repeated, Mr. Gresham made no reply; but he immediately bought the uniform for Hal, and desired that it should be sent to Lady Diana Sweepstakes' sons' tailor, to be made up. The measure of Hal's happiness was now complete.

"And how am I to lay out the three guineas for you, Ben?" said Mr. Gresham. "Speak—what do you wish for first?"

Mr. Gresham bought the coat; and, after it was paid for, five-and-twenty shillings of Ben's three guineas remained.

"Well, I meant a bow and arrows. I'm glad you are so exact, however. It is better to claim less than more than what is promised. The three arrows you shall have. But go on;—how shall I dispose of these five-and-twenty shillings for you?"

"In clothes, if you will be so good, uncle, for that poor boy who has got the great black patch on his eye."

"I always believed," said Mr. Gresham, shaking hands with Ben, "that economy and generosity were the best friends, instead of being enemies, as some silly, extravagant people would have us think them. Choose the poor blind boys' coat, my dear nephew, and pay for it. There's no occasion for my praising you about the matter: your best reward is in your own mind, child; and you want no other, or I'm mistaken. Now jump into the coach, boys, and let's be off. We shall be late, I'm afraid," continued he, as the coach drove on; "but I must let you stop, Ben, with your goods, at the poor boy's door."

When they came to the house, Mr. Gresham opened the coach door, and Ben jumped out with his parcel under his arm.

"Stay, stay! You must take me with you," said his pleased uncle. "I like to see people made happy as well as you do."

"And so do I too!" said Hal. "Let me come with you. I almost wish my uniform was not gone to the tailor's, so I do."

And when he saw the look of delight and gratitude with which the poor boy received the clothes which Ben gave him, and when he heard the mother and children thank him, Hal sighed, and said, "Well, I hope mamma will give me some more pocket-money soon."

Upon his return home, however, the sight of the famous bow and arrow, which Lady Diana Sweepstakes had sent him, recalled to his imagination all the joys of his green and white uniform, and he no longer wished that it had not been sent to the tailor's.

"But I do not understand, cousin Hal," said little Patty, "why you call this bow a famous bow. You say famous very often; and I don't know exactly what it means—a famous uniform—famous doings—I remember you said there was to be famous doings, the first of September, upon the Downs—What does famous mean?"

"O, why, famous means—Now don't you know what famous means?—It means—It is a word that people say—It is the fashion to say it—It means—it means famous."

"No," said Hal, "nor can it be explained. If you don't understand it, that's not my fault; everybody but little children, I suppose, understands it; but there's no explaining those sort of words, if you don't take them at once. There's to be famous doings upon the Downs, the first of September; that is, grand, fine. In short, what does it signify talking any longer, Patty, about the matter? Give me my bow; for I must go out upon the Downs and practise."

Ben accompanied him with the bow and the three arrows which his uncle had now given to him; and every day these two boys went out upon the Downs, and practised shooting with indefatigable perseverance. Where equal pains are taken, success is usually found to be pretty nearly equal. Our two archers, by constant practise, became expert marksmen; and before the day of trial, they were so exactly matched in point of dexterity, that it was scarcely possible to decide which was superior.

The long-expected first of September at length arrived. "What sort of a day is it?" was the first question that was asked by Hal and Ben, the moment that they awakened.

"Ha!" said Ben. "I shall be glad of my good great coat to-day; for I've a notion it will be rather cold upon the Downs, especially when we are standing still, as we must whilst the people are shooting."

"O, never mind! I don't think I shall feel cold at all," said Hal, as he dressed himself in his new green and white uniform; and he viewed himself with much complacency.

"Good morning to you, uncle; how do you do?" said he in a voice of exultation, when he entered the breakfast-room.

And his uncle's cool "Very well, I thank you, Hal," disappointed him, as it seemed only to say,—Your uniform makes no difference in my opinion of you.

Even little Patty went on eating her breakfast much as usual, and talked of the pleasures of walking with her father to the Downs, and of all the little things which interested her, so that Hal's epaulettes were not the principal object of any one's imagination but his own.

"Papa," said Patty, "as we go up the hill where there is so much red mud, I must take care to pick my way nicely; and I must hold up my frock, as you desired me; and perhaps you will be so good, if I am not troublesome, as to lift me over the very bad place where there are no stepping-stones. My ankle is entirely well, and I'm glad of that, or else I should not be able to walk as far as the Downs. How good you were to me, Ben, when I was in pain, the day I sprained my ankle; you played at jackstraws, and at cat's cradle, with me—O, that puts me in mind—Here are your gloves, which I asked you that night to let me mend. I've been a great while about them, but are not they very neatly mended, papa?—Look at the sewing."

"I am not a very good judge of sewing, my dear little girl," said Mr. Gresham, examining the work with a close and scrupulous eye; "but, in my opinion, here is one stitch that is rather too long; the white teeth are not quite even."

"O, papa, I'll take out that long tooth in a minute," said Patty, laughing. "I did not think that you would have observed it so soon."

"I would not have you trust to my blindness," said her father, stroking her head fondly: "I observe every thing. I observe, for instance, that you are a grateful little girl, and that you are glad to be of use to those who have been kind to you; and for this I forgive you the long stitch."

"But it's out, it's out, Papa," said Patty; "and the next time your gloves want mending, Ben, I'll mend them better."

"They are very nice, I think," said Ben, drawing them on; "and I am much obliged to you. I was just wishing I had a pair of gloves to keep my fingers warm to-day, for I never can shoot well when my hands are numbed. Look, Hal—you know how ragged these gloves were; you said they were good for nothing but to throw away; now look, there's not a hole in them," said he, spreading his fingers.

"Now, is it not very extraordinary," said Hal to himself, "that they should go on so long talking about an old pair of gloves, without scarcely saying a word about my new uniform? Well, the young Sweepstakes and Lady Diana will talk enough about it; that's one comfort."

"Is not it time to think of setting out, sir?" said Hal to his uncle. "The company, you know, are to meet at the Ostrich, at twelve, and the race to begin at one, and Lady Diana's horses, I know, were ordered to be at the door at ten."

Mr. Stephen, the butler, here interrupted the hurrying young gentleman in his calculations—"There's a poor lad, sir, below, with a great black patch on his right eye, who is come from Bristol, and wants to speak a word with the young gentlemen, if you please. I told him they were just going out with you, but he says he won't detain them above half a minute."

"But I suppose," said Hal, with a sigh, "that Stephen mistook when he said the young gentlemen; he only wants to see Ben, I dare say; I'm sure he has no reason to want to see me."

"Here he comes—O, Ben, he is dressed in the new coat you gave him," whispered Hal, who was really a good-natured boy, though extravagant. "How much better he looks than he did in the ragged coat! Ah! He looked at you first, Ben!—And well he may!"

The boy bowed, without any cringing but with an open, decent freedom in his manner, which expressed that he had been obliged, but that he knew his young benefactor was not thinking of the obligation. He made as little distinction as possible between his bows to the two cousins.

"As I was sent with a message, by the clerk of our parish, to Redland chapel, out on the Downs, to-day, sir," said he to Mr. Gresham, "knowing your house lay in my way, my mother, sir, bid me call and make bold to offer the young gentlemen two little worsted balls that she had worked for them," continued the lad, pulling out of his pocket two worsted balls worked in green and orange-coloured stripes: "they are but poor things, sir, she bid me say, to look at, but, considering she has but one hand to work with, and that her left hand, you'll not despise 'em, we hopes."

He held the balls to Ben and Hal.—"They are both alike, gentlemen," said he; "if you'll be pleased to take 'em, they're better than they look, for they bound higher than your head. I cut the cork round for the inside myself, which was all I could do."

"They are nice balls indeed; we are much obliged to you," said the boys as they received them; and they proved them immediately. The balls struck the floor with a delightful sound, and rebounded higher than Mr. Gresham's head. Little Patty clapped her hands joyfully—but now a thundering double rap at the door was heard.

"The Master Sweepstakes, sir," said Stephen, "are come for Master Hal. They say that all the young gentlemen who have archery uniforms are to walk together, in a body, I think they say, sir; and they are to parade along the Well-walk, they desire me to say, sir, with a drum and fife, and so up the hill by Prince's Place, and all to go upon the Downs together, to the place of meeting. I am not sure I'm right, sir, for both the young gentlemen spoke at once, and the wind is very high at the street door, so that I could not well make out all they said; but I believe this is the sense of it."

"Yes, yes," said Hal, eagerly, "it's all right; I know that is just what was settled the day I dined at Lady Diana's: and Lady Diana, and a great party of gentlemen, are to ride—"

"Well, that is nothing to the purpose," interrupted Mr. Gresham. "Don't keep the Master Sweepstakes waiting; decide—do you choose to go with them, or with us?"

Hal ran down stairs in such a hurry that he forgot his bow and arrows. Ben discovered this, when he went to fetch his own; and the lad from Bristol, who had been ordered by Mr. Gresham to eat his breakfast before he proceeded to Redland chapel, heard Ben talking about his cousin's bow and arrows.

"I know," said Ben, "he will be sorry not to have his bow with him, because here are the green knots tied to it, to match his cockade; and he said that the boys were all to carry their bows, as part of the show."

"If you'll give me leave, sir," said the poor Bristol lad, "I shall have plenty of time; and I'll run down to the Well-walk after the young gentleman, and take him his bow and arrows."

The public walk leading to the Wells was full of company. The windows of all the houses in St. Vincent's parade were crowded with well-dressed ladies, who were looking out in expectation of the archery procession. Parties of gentlemen and ladies, and a motley crowd of spectators, were seen moving backwards and forwards, under the rocks, on the opposite side of the water. A barge, with coloured streamers flying, was waiting to take up a party, who were going upon the water. The bargemen rested up their oars, and gazed with broad faces of curiosity upon the busy scene that appeared upon the public walk.

The archers and archeresses were now drawn up on the flags under the semicircular piazza just before Mrs. Yearsley's library. A little band of children, who had been mustered by Lady Diana Sweepstakes' "spirited exertions," closed the procession. They were now all in readiness. The drummer only waited for her ladyship's signal: and the archers' corps * only waited for her ladyship's word of command to march.

"Where are your bow and arrows, my little man?" said her ladyship to Hal, as she reviewed her Lilliputian regiment. "You can't march, man, without your arms!"

Hal had despatched a messenger for his forgotten bow, but the messenger returned not; he looked from side to side in great distress. "O, there's my bow coming, I declare!" cried he. "Look, I see the bow and the ribands; look now between the trees, Charles Sweepstakes, on the Hotwell-walk; it is coming!"

"But you've kept us all waiting a confounded time," said his impatient friend. "It is that good-natured poor fellow from Bristol, I protest, that has brought it to me. I'm sure I don't deserve it from him," said Hal to himself, when he saw the lad with the black patch on his eye running, quite out of breath, towards him with his bow and arrows.

"Fall back, my good friend, fall back," said the military lady, as soon as he had delivered the bow to Hal; "I mean stand out of the way, for your great patch cuts no figure amongst us. Don't follow so close, now, as if you belonged to us, pray."

The poor boy had no ambition to partake the triumph; he fell back, as soon as he understood the meaning of the lady's words.

The drum beat, the fife played, the archers marched, the spectators admired. Hal stepped proudly and felt as if the eyes of the whole universe were upon his epaulettes, or upon the facings of his uniform; whilst all the time he was considered only as part of a show. The walk appeared much shorter than usual, and he was extremely sorry that Lady Diana, when they were half way up the hill leading to Prince's Place, mounted her horse, because the road was dirty, and all the gentlemen and ladies who accompanied her, followed her example.

"We can leave the children to walk, you know," said she to the gentleman who helped her to mount her horse. "I must call to some of them though, and leave orders where they are to join."

She beckoned; and Hal, who was foremost, and proud to show his alacrity, ran on to receive her ladyship's orders. Now, as we have before observed, it was a sharp and windy day; and though Lady Diana Sweepstakes was actually speaking to him, and looking at him, he could not prevent his nose from wanting to be blowed; he pulled out his handkerchief, and out rolled the new ball, which had been given to him just before he left home, and which, according to his usual careless habits, he had stuffed into his pocket in a hurry.

As he stooped to pick it up, he let go his hat, which he had hitherto held on with anxious care; for the hat, though it had a fine green and white cockade, had no band or string round it. The string, as we may recollect, our wasteful hero had used in spinning his top. The hat was too large for his head without this band; a sudden gust of wind blew it off; Lady Diana's horse started, and reared. She was a "famous" horsewoman, and sat him to the admiration of all beholders; but there was a puddle of red clay and water in this spot, and her ladyship's uniform-habit was a sufferer by the accident.

In the meantime the wind blew the hat down the hill, and Hal ran after it, amidst the laughter of his kind friends, the young Sweepstakes, and the rest of the little regiment. The hat was lodged at length upon a bank. Hal pursued it: he thought this bank was hard, but, alas! The moment he set his foot upon it, the foot sank. He tried to draw it back, his other foot slipped, and he fell prostrate, in his green and white uniform, into the treacherous bed of red mud. His companions, who had halted upon the top of the hill, stood laughing spectators of his misfortune.

It happened that the poor boy with the black patch upon his eye, who had been ordered by Lady Diana to "fall back," and to "keep at a distance," was now coming up the hill; and the moment he saw our fallen hero, he hastened to his assistance. He dragged poor Hal, who was a deplorable spectacle, out of the red mud; the obliging mistress of a lodging-house, as soon as she understood that the young gentleman was nephew to Mr. Gresham, to whom she had formerly let her house, received Hal, covered as he was with dirt.

The poor Bristol lad hastened to Mr. Gresham's for clean stockings and shoes for Hal. He was unwilling to give up his uniform; it was rubbed and rubbed, and a spot here and there was washed out; and he kept continually repeating, "When it's dry it will all brush off, when it's dry it will all brush off, won't it?"

But soon the fear of being too late at the archery meeting began to balance the dread of appearing in his stained habiliments; and he now as anxiously repeated, whilst the woman held the wet coat to the fire, "O, I shall be too late; indeed, I shall be too late; make haste; it will never dry; hold it nearer—nearer to the fire; I shall lose my turn to shoot; O give me the coat; I don't mind how it is, if I can but get it on."

Holding it nearer and nearer to the fire dried it quickly, to be sure, but it shrank it also; so that it was no easy matter to get the coat on again. However, Hal, who did not see the red splashes, which, in spite of all the operations, were too visible upon his shoulders, and upon the skirts of his white coat behind, was pretty well satisfied to observe that there was not one spot upon the facings.

"Nobody," said he, "will take notice of my coat behind, I dare say. I think it looks as smart almost as ever;" and under this persuasion, our young archer resumed his bow—his bow with green ribands now no more! And he pursued his way to the Downs.

"I suppose," said he to his friend with the black patch—"I suppose my uncle and Ben had left home before you went for the shoes and stockings for me?"

"O yes, sir; the butler said they had been gone to the Downs a matter of a good half hour or more."

Hal trudged on as fast as he possibly could. When he got upon the Downs, he saw numbers of carriages, and crowds of people, all going towards the place of meeting, at the Ostrich. He pressed forwards. He was at first so much afraid of being late, that he did not take notice of the mirth his motley appearance excited in all beholders. At length he reached the appointed spot. There was a great crowd of people; in the midst, he heard Lady Diana's loud voice betting upon some one who was just going to shoot at the mark.

"So then the shooting is begun, is it?" said Hal. "O, let me in; pray let me into the circle. I'm one of the archers; I am, indeed; don't you see my green and white uniform?"

"Your red and white uniform, you mean," said the man to whom he addressed himself; and the people, as they opened a passage for him, could not refrain from laughing at the mixture of dirt and finery which it exhibited.

In vain, when he got into the midst of the formidable circle, he looked to his friends, the young Sweepstakes, for their countenance and support; they were amongst the most unmerciful of the laughers. Lady Diana also seemed more to enjoy than to pity his confusion.

"Why could you not keep your hat upon your head, man?" said she, in her masculine tone. "You have been almost the ruin of my poor uniform-habit; but, thank God, I've escaped rather better than you have. Don't stand there, in the middle of the circle, or you'll have an arrow in your eyes, just now, I've a notion."

"O, where's my uncle? Where's Ben?" said he. He was in such confusion that, amongst the number of faces, he could scarcely distinguish one from another; but he felt somebody at this moment pull his elbow, and, to his great relief, he heard the friendly voice and saw the good-natured face of his cousin Ben.

"Come back; come behind the people," said Ben; "and put on my great coat; here it is for you."

Right glad was Hal to cover his disgraced uniform with the rough great coat which he had formerly despised. He pulled the stained, drooping cockade out of his unfortunate hat; and he was now sufficiently recovered from his vexation to give an intelligible account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hat-band to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune, and he was at the same time endeavouring to refute his uncle's opinion that the waste of the whip-cord, that tied the parcel, was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his skill with his "famous" bow.

"My hands are numbed; I can scarcely feel," said he, rubbing them, and blowing upon the ends of his fingers.

"Come, come," cried young Sweepstakes, "I'm within one inch of the mark; who'll go nearer, I shall like to see. Shoot away, Hal. But first understand our laws; we settled them before you came upon the green. You are to have three shots, with your own bow and your own arrows; and nobody's to borrow or lend under pretence of other bows being better or worse, or under any pretence. Do you hear, Hal?"

This young gentleman had good reasons for being so strict in these laws, as he had observed that none of his companions had such an excellent bow as he had provided for himself. Some of the boys had forgotten to bring more than one arrow with them, and by his cunning regulations that each person should shoot with his own arrows, many had lost one or two of their shots.

"You are a lucky fellow: you have your three arrows," said young Sweepstakes. "Come, we can't wait whilst you rub your fingers, man—shoot away."

Hal was rather surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintances, who call themselves friends, can change, when their interest comes in the slightest degree in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hands so much benumbed that he could scarcely feel how to fix the arrow in the string, he drew the bow. The arrow was within a quarter of an inch of Master Sweepstakes' mark, which was the nearest that had yet been hit. Hal seized his second arrow—"If I have any luck," said he—But just as he pronounced the word luck, and as he bent his bow, the string broke in two, and the bow fell from his hands.

"There, it's all over with you," cried Master Sweepstakes, with a triumphant laugh.

"No, no, sir; that is not fair; that's against the regulation. You may shoot with your own bow if you choose it, or you may not, just as you think proper; but you must not lend it, sir."

It was now Ben's turn to make his trial. His first arrow was not successful. His second was exactly as near as Hal's first.

Ben, before he ventured his last arrow, prudently examined the string of his bow; and as he pulled it to try its strength, it cracked.

Master Sweepstakes clapped his hands with loud exultations and insulting laughter. But his laughter ceased, when our provident hero calmly drew from his pocket an excellent piece of whip-cord.

"The everlasting whip-cord, I declare!" exclaimed Hal, when he saw that it was the very same that had tied up the parcel.

"Yes," said Ben, as he fastened it to his bow, "I put it into my pocket to-day, on purpose, because I thought I might happen to want it."

"O, papa," cried little Patty, as his arrow hit the mark, "it's the nearest; is not it the nearest?"

Master Sweepstakes, with anxiety, examined the hit. There could be no doubt. Ben was victorious! The bow, the prize bow, was now delivered to him.

And Hal, as he looked at the whip-cord, exclaimed, "How lucky this whip-cord has been to you, Ben!"

"Ay," said Hal, "very true; he might well say 'Waste not, want not;' it is a good thing to have two strings to one's bow."

IN a beautiful and retired part of England lived Mrs. Villars, a lady whose accurate understanding, benevolent heart, and steady temper, peculiarly fitted her for the most difficult, as well as most important of all occupations—the education of youth. This task she had undertaken; and twenty young persons were put under her care, with the perfect confidence of their parents. No young people could be happier; they were good and gay, emulous, but not envious of each other; for Mrs. Villars was impartially just. Her praise they felt to be the reward of merit, and her blame they knew to be the necessary consequence of ill conduct; to the one, therefore, they patiently submitted, and in the other consciously rejoiced. They rose with fresh cheerfulness in the morning, eager to pursue their various occupations; they returned in the evening with renewed ardour to their amusements, and retired to rest satisfied with themselves and pleased with each other.

Nothing so much contributed to preserve spirit of emulation in this little society as a small honorary distinction given annually, as the prize of successful application. The prize this year was peculiarly dear to each individual, as it was the picture of a friend whom they all dearly loved—it was the picture of Mrs. Villars in a small bracelet. It wanted neither gold, pearls, nor precious stones, to give it value.

The two foremost candidates for the prize were Cecilia and Leonora. Cecilia was the most intimate friend of Leonora, but Leonora was only the favourite companion of Cecilia.

Cecilia was of an active, ambitious, enterprising disposition; more eager in the pursuit than happy in the enjoyment of her wishes. Leonora was of a contented, unaspiring, temperate character, not easily roused to action, but indefatigable when once excited. Leonora was proud, Cecilia was vain. Her vanity made her more dependent upon the approbation of others, and therefore more anxious to please, than Leonora; but that very vanity made her, at the same time, more apt to offend. In short, Leonora was the most anxious to avoid what was wrong, Cecilia the most ambitious to do what was right. Few of their companions loved, but many were led by Cecilia, for she was often successful; many loved Leonora, but none were ever governed by her, for she was too indolent to govern.

On the first day of May, about six o'clock in the evening, a great bell rang, to summon this little society into a hall, where the prize was to be decided. A number of small tables were placed in a circle in the middle of the hall; seats for the young competitors were raised one above another, in a semicircle, some yards distant from the table; and the judges' chairs, under canopies of lilacs and laburnums, forming another semicircle, closed the amphitheatre. Every one put their writings, their drawings, their works of various kinds, upon the tables appropriated for each. How unsteady were the last steps to these tables! How each little hand trembled as it laid down its claims! Till this moment every one thought herself secure of success, but now each felt an equal certainty of being excelled; and the heart which a few minutes before exulted with hope, now palpitated with fear.

The works were examined, the preference adjudged; and the prize was declared to be the happy Cecilia's. Mrs. Villars came forward smiling, with the bracelet in her hand. Cecilia was behind her companions, on the highest row; all the others gave way, and she was on the floor in an instant. Mrs. Villa clasped the bracelet on her arm; the clasp was heard through the whole hall, and a universal smile of congratulation followed. Mrs. Villars kissed Cecilia's little hand; and "now," said she, "go and rejoice with your companions; the remainder of the day is yours."

Oh! You whose hearts are elated with success, whose bosoms beat high with joy, in the moment of triumph, command yourselves; let that triumph be moderate, that it may be lasting. Consider that, though you are good, you may be better, and though wise, you may be weak.

As soon as Mrs. Villars had given her the bracelet, all Cecilia's little companions crowded round her, and they all left the hall in an instant. She was full of spirits and vanity—she ran on, running down the flight of steps which led to the garden. In her violent haste, Cecilia threw down the little Louisa. Louisa had a china mandarin in her hand, which her mother had sent her that very morning; it was all broke to pieces by the fall.

Louisa sat on the lowest steps fixing her eyes upon the broken pieces; then, turning round, she hid her face in her hands upon the step above her. In turning, Louisa threw down the remains of the mandarin; the head, which she had placed in the socket, fell from the shoulders, and rolled bounding along the gravel-walk.

Cecilia pointed to the head and to the socket, and burst out laughing; the crowd behind laughed too. At any other time they would have been more inclined to cry with Louisa; but Cecilia had just been successful, and sympathy with the victorious often makes us forget justice.

Leonora, however, preserved her usual consistency. "Poor, Louisa!" said she, looking first at her, and then reproachfully at Cecilia.

Cecilia turned sharply round, colouring, half with shame and half with vexation. "I could not help it, Leonora," said she.

"I didn't laugh at Louisa; and I surely may laugh, for it does nobody any harm."

"No, to be sure you wouldn't, because Louisa is your favourite. I can buy her another mandarin the next time that old pedlar comes to the door, if that's all. I can do no more. Can I?" said she, turning round to her companions.

Cecilia looked triumphantly at Leonora. Leonora let go her hand; she ran on, and the crowd followed. When she got to the end of the garden, she turned round to see if Leonora had followed her too; but was vexed to see her still sitting on the steps with Louisa.

"I'm sure I can do no more than buy her another! Can I?" said she, again appealing to her companions.

How many did they begin and leave off before Cecilia could be satisfied with any. Her thoughts were discomposed, and her mind was running upon something else; no wonder then that she did not play with her usual address. She grew still more impatient; she threw down the nine-pins:

"Come, let us play at something else—at threading the needle," said she, holding out her hand.

They all yielded to the hand which wore the bracelet. But Cecilia, dissatisfied with herself, was discontented with everybody else; her tone grew more and more peremptory—one was too rude, another too stiff; one was too slow, another too quick; in short, everything went wrong, and everybody was tired of her humours.

The triumph of "success" is absolute, but short. Cecilia's companions at length recollected that though she had embroidered a tulip and painted a peach better than they, yet that they could play as well, and keep their tempers better: she was thrown out. Walking towards the house in a peevish mood, she met Leonora; she passed on.

"What! Not confess that you were in the wrong! Oh, Cecilia! I had a better opinion of you."

"I don't desire to have such a friend, who would quarrel with me for happening to throw down little Louisa—how could I tell that she had a mandarin in her hand? And when it was broken, could I do more than promise her another? Was that unjust?"

"'I know,'" ironically, "I know, Leonora, that you love Louisa better than you do me; that's the injustice!"

"If I did," replied Leonora gravely, "it would be no injustice, if she deserved it better."

Leonora made no answer, for she was really hurt at her friend's conduct; she walked on to join the rest of her companions. They were dancing in a round upon the grass. Leonora declined dancing, but they prevailed upon her to sing for them; her voice was not so sprightly, but it was sweeter than usual. Who sung so sweetly as Leonora? Or who danced so nimbly as Louisa?

Away she was flying, all spirits and gayety, when Leonora's eyes full of tears, caught hers. Louisa silently let go her companions' hands, and quitting the dance, ran up to Leonora to inquire what was the matter with her.

"Nothing," replied she, "that need interrupt you—Go, my dear, and dance again."

Louisa immediately ran away to her garden, and pulling off her little straw hat, she lined it with the freshest strawberry leaves, and was upon her knees before the strawberry bed when Cecilia came by. Cecilia was not disposed to be pleased with Louisa at that instant, for two reasons: because she was jealous of her, and because she had injured her. The injury, however, Louisa had already forgotten; perhaps, to tell things just as they were, she was not quite so much inclined to kiss Cecilia as she would have been before the fall of her mandarin, but this was the utmost extent of her malice, if it can be called malice.

"What are you doing there, little one?" said Cecilia in a sharp tone. "Are you eating your early strawberries here all alone?"

"What are you doing with them—can't you answer then? I'm not playing with you, child!"

"Oh! As to that, Cecilia, you know I need not answer you unless I choose it; not but what I would, if you would only ask me civilly—and if you would not call me child."

"Because—because—I don't know;—but I wish you would stand out of my light, Cecilia, for you are trampling upon all my strawberries."

"Indeed—indeed, Cecilia, I am not covetous. I have not eaten one of them—they are all for your friend Leonora. See how unjust you are."

"Unjust! That's a Cant word you learned of my friend Leonora, as you call her, but she is not my friend now."

"Not your friend now!" exclaimed Louisa. "Then, I am sure you must have done something very naughty."

"Let me go—Let me go!" cried Louisa, struggling. "I won't give you one of my strawberries, for I don't like you at all."

"You don't, don't you?" said Cecilia, provoked and catching the strawberries over the hedge.

"Will nobody help me!" exclaimed Louisa, snatching her hat again, and running away with all her force.

She called very loud, but Louisa would not turn back! She was running to her companions.

They were still dancing, hand in hand, upon the grass, whilst Leonora, sitting in the middle, sang to them.

"Stop! Stop! And hear me!" cried Louisa, breaking through them; and rushing up to Leonora, she threw her hat at her feet, and panting for breath—

"It was full—almost full of my own strawberries," said she, "the first I ever got out of my own garden. They should all have been for you, Leonora, but now I have not one left. They are all gone!" said she; and she hid her face in Leonora's lap.

"Gone! Gone where?" said every one at once, running up to her. "Cecilia! Cecilia!" said she, sobbing.

"Come along with me," said Leonora, unwilling to have her friend exposed; "come, and I will get you some more strawberries."

"Oh, I don't mind the strawberries, indeed; but I wanted to have had the pleasure of giving them to you."

"What, Cecilia! Cecilia, who won the prize! It could not surely be Cecilia," whispered every busy tongue.

"There she is!—There she is!" cried they, pointing to an arbour, where Cecilia was standing, ashamed and alone; and as they passed her, some lifted up their hands and eyes with astonishment, others whispered and huddled mysteriously together, as if to avoid her. Leonora walked on, her head a little higher than usual.

"Oh no, indeed, she has not a bad heart," cried Louisa, running up to her, and throwing her arms round her neck; "she's very sorry!—Are not you, Cecilia? But don't cry any more, for I forgive you with all my heart; and I love you now, though I said I did not when I was in a passion."

"Well then, if you do, come along with me, and dry your eyes, for they are so red."

"Then I will keep a place for you next to me; but you must make haste, or you will have to come in when we have all set down to supper, and then you will be so stared at! So don't stay now."

Cecilia followed Louisa with her eyes till she was out of sight. "And is Louisa," said she to herself, "the only one who would stop to pity me? Mrs. Villars told me that this day should be mine; she little thought how it would end!"

Saying these words, Cecilia threw herself down upon the ground; her arm leaned upon a heap of turf which she had raised in the morning, and which in the pride and gayety of her heart, she had called her throne.

At this instant, Mrs. Villars came out to enjoy the serenity of the evening, and passing by the arbour where Cecilia lay, she started; Cecilia rose hastily.

"Why, what keeps you here, my dear—where are your companions? This is, perhaps, one of the happiest days of your life."

"Speak, my dear. You know that when I ask you to tell me any thing as your friend, I never punish you as your governess; therefore you need not be afraid to tell me what is the matter."

"No, madam, I am not afraid, but ashamed. You asked me why I was not with my companions. Why, madam, because they have all left me, and—"

"And I see that they all dislike me. And yet I don't know why they should, for I take as much pains to please as any of them. All my masters seem satisfied with me; and you yourself, ma'am, were pleased this very morning to give me this bracelet; and I am sure you would not have given it to any one who did not deserve it."

"Certainly not. You did deserve it for your application—for your successful application. The prize was for the most assiduous, not for the most amiable."

Mrs. Villars, smiling—"Why, what do you think yourself, Cecilia? You are better able to judge than I am. I can determine whether or no you apply to what I give you to learn; whether you attend to what I desire you to do, and avoid what I desire you not to do. I know that I like you as a pupil, but I cannot know that I should like you as a companion, unless I were your companion; therefore I must judge of what I should do by seeing what others do in the same circumstances."

"O, pray don't, ma'am; for then you would not love me neither. And yet I think you would love me; for I hope that I am as ready to oblige, and as good-natured, as—"

"Yes, Cecilia, I don't doubt but that you would be very good-natured to me, but I am afraid that I should not like you unless you were good-tempered, too."

"No, indeed, I understand by them two very different things. You are good-natured, Cecilia, for you are desirous to oblige and serve your companions, to gain them praise and save them from blame, to give them pleasure, and to relieve them from pain; but Leonora is good-tempered, for she can bear with their foibles, and acknowledge her own. Without disputing about the right, she sometimes yields to those who are in the wrong. In short, her temper is perfectly good, for it can bear and forbear."

"It may," replied Mrs. Villars; "but it is not wishes alone which can improve us in any thing. Turn the same exertion and perseverance which have won you the prize to-day to this object, and you will meet with the same success; perhaps not on the first, the second, or the third attempt, but depend upon it that you will at last; every new effort will weaken your bad habits and strengthen your good ones. But you must not expect to succeed all at once; I repeat it to you, for habit must be counteracted by habit. It would be as extravagant in us to expect that all our faults could be destroyed by one punishment, were it ever so severe, as it was in the Roman emperor we were reading of a few days ago to wish that all the heads of his enemies were upon one neck, that he might cut them off by one blow."

Such was the nature of Cecilia's mind, that, when any object was forcibly impressed on her imagination, it caused temporary suspension of her reasoning faculties. Hope was too strong a stimulus for her spirits; and when fear did take possession of her mind, it was attended with total debility. Her vanity was now as much mortified as in the morning it had been elated. She walked on with Mrs. Villars in silence until they came under the shade of the elm tree walk, and then, fixing her eyes upon Mrs. Villars, she stopped short.

"Do you think, madam," said she, with hesitation, "do you think, madam, that I have a bad heart?"

"But, my dear, how can Leonora tell whether your heart be good or bad? However, in the first place, tell me what you mean by a bad heart."

"Indeed, I do not know what is meant by it, ma'am; but it is something which every body hates."

"Because they think that it will hurt them, ma'am, I believe; and that those who have bad hearts take delight in doing mischief; and that they never do any body good but for their own ends."

"Then the best definition which you can give me of a bad heart is that it is some constant propensity to hurt others, and to do wrong for the sake of doing wrong."

"Yes, ma'am, but that is not all neither; there is still something else meant; something which I cannot express—which, indeed, I never distinctly understood; but of which, therefore, I was the more afraid."

"Well, then, to begin with what you do understand, tell me, Cecilia, do you really think it possible to be wicked merely for the love of wickedness? No human being becomes wicked all at once; a man begins by doing wrong because it is, or because he thinks it is for his interest; if he continues to do so, he must conquer his sense of shame, and lose his love of virtue. But how can you, Cecilia, who feel such a strong sense of shame, and such an eager desire to improve, imagine that you have a bad heart?"

"Indeed, madam, I never did, until every body told me so, and then I began to be frightened about it. This very evening, ma'am, when I was in a passion, I threw little Louisa's strawberries away; which, I am sure, I was very sorry for afterwards; and Leonora and every body cried out that I had a bad heart; but I am sure that I was only in a passion."

"Very likely. And when you are in a passion, as you call it, Cecilia, you see that you are tempted to do harm to others; if they do not feel angry themselves, they do not sympathize with you; they do not perceive the motive which actuates you, and then they say that you have a bad heart. I dare say, however, when your passion is over, and when you recollect yourself; you are very sorry for what you have done and said; are not you?"

"Then make that sorrow of use to you, Cecilia, and fix it steadily in your thoughts, as you hope to be good and happy, that, if you suffer yourself to yield to your passion upon every trifling occasion, anger and its consequences will become familiar to your mind; and in the same proportion your sense of shame will be weakened, till what you began with doing from sudden impulse you will end with doing from habit and choice; and then you would, indeed, according to our definition, have a bad heart."

"No, indeed, Cecilia; I do, indeed, believe that you never will; on the contrary, I think that you have a very good disposition, and, what is of infinitely more consequence to you, an active desire of improvement. Show me that you have, as much perseverance as you have candour, and I shall not despair of your becoming every thing that I could wish."

Here Cecilia's countenance brightened, and she ran up the steps in almost as high spirits as she ran down them in the morning.

She could not go to sleep, but she lay awake reflecting upon the events of the preceding day, and forming resolutions for the future; at the same time, considering that she had resolved, and resolved without effect, she wished to give her mind some more powerful motive; ambition she knew to be its most powerful incentive.

"Have I not," said she to herself, "already won the prize of application, and cannot the same application procure me a much higher prize? Mrs. Villars said that if the prize had been promised to the most amiable, it would not have been given to me; perhaps it would not yesterday—perhaps it might not to-morrow; but that is no reason that I should despair of ever deserving it."

In consequence of this reasoning, Cecilia formed a design of proposing to her companions that they should give a prize, the first of the ensuing month (the first of June), to the most amiable. Mrs. Villars applauded the scheme, and her companions adopted it with the greatest alacrity.

"Let the prize," said they, "be a bracelet of our own hair." And instantly their shining scissors were procured, and each contributed a lock of her hair. They formed the most beautiful gradation of colours, from the palest auburn to the brightest black. Who was to have the honour of plaiting them was now the question.

Cecilia, however, was equally sure that she could do it much better, and a dispute would inevitably have ensued, if Cecilia, recollecting herself just as her colour rose to scarlet, had not yielded—yielded with no very good grace indeed, but as well as could be expected for the first time. For it is habit which confers ease; and without ease, even in moral actions, there can be no grace.

The bracelet was plaited in the neatest manner by Caroline, finished round the edge with silver twist, and on it was worked, in the smallest silver letters, this motto, TO THE MOST AMIABLE. The moment it was completed, every body begged to try it on. It fastened with little silver clasps, and as it was made large enough for the eldest girls, it was too large for the youngest; of this they bitterly complained, and unanimously entreated that it might be cut to fit them.

"How foolish!" exclaimed Cecilia. "Don't you perceive that, if you win it, you have nothing to do but to put the clasps a little further from the edge? But if we get it, we can't make it larger."

It was by such hasty and unguarded expressions as these that Cecilia offended; a slight difference in the manner makes a very material one in the effect. Cecilia lost more love by general petulance than she could gain by the greatest particular exertions.

How far she succeeded in curing herself of this defect, how far she became deserving of the bracelet, and to whom the bracelet was given, shall be told in the history of the first of June.

THE first of June was now arrived, and all the young competitors were in a state of the most anxious suspense.

Leonora and Cecilia continued to be the foremost candidates; their quarrel had never been finally adjusted, and their different pretensions now retarded all thoughts of a reconciliation.

Cecilia, though she was capable of acknowledging any of her faults in public before all her companions, could not humble herself in private to Leonora; Leonora was her equal, they were her inferiors; and submission is much easier to a vain mind, where it appears to be voluntary, than when it is the necessary tribute to justice or candour. So strongly did Cecilia feel this truth that she even delayed making any apology, or coming to any explanation with Leonora, until success should once more give her the palm.

If I win the bracelet to-day, said she to herself; I will solicit the return of Leonora's friendship; it will be more valuable to me than even the bracelet; and at such a time, and asked in such a manner, she surely cannot refuse it to me. Animated with this hope of a double triumph, Cecilia canvassed with the most zealous activity; by constant attention and exertion she had considerably abated the violence of her temper, and changed the course of her habits. Her powers of pleasing were now excited, instead of her abilities to excel; and, if her talents appeared less brilliant, her character was acknowledged to be more amiable; so great an influence upon our manners and conduct have the objects of our ambition. Cecilia was now, if possible, more than ever desirous of doing what was right, but she had not yet acquired sufficient fear of doing wrong. This was the fundamental error of her mind; it arose in a great measure from her early education.

Her mother died when she was very young; and though her father had supplied her place in the best and kindest manner, he had insensibly infused into his daughter's mind a portion of that enterprising, independent spirit, which he justly deemed essential to the character of her brother. This brother was some years older than Cecilia, but he had always been the favourite companion of her youth; what her father's precepts inculcated, his example enforced, and even Cecilia's virtues consequently became such as were more estimable in a man than desirable in a female.

All small objects and small errors she had been taught to disregard as trifles; and her impatient disposition was perpetually leading her into more material faults; yet her candour in confessing these, she had been suffered to believe, was sufficient reparation and atonement.

Leonora, on the contrary, who had been educated by her mother in a manner more suited to her sex, had a character and virtues more peculiar to a female; her judgment had been early cultivated, and her good sense employed in the regulation of her conduct; she had been habituated to that restraint, which, as a woman, she was to expect in life, and early accustomed to yield; compliance in her seemed natural and graceful.

Yet, notwithstanding the gentleness of her temper, she was in reality more independent than Cecilia; she had more reliance upon her own judgment, and more satisfaction in her own approbation. Though far from insensible to praise, she was not liable to be misled by the indiscriminate love of admiration; the uniform kindness of her manner, the consistency and equality of her character, had fixed the esteem and passive love of her companions.

By passive love, we mean that species of affection which makes us unwilling to offend, rather than anxious to oblige; which is more a habit than an emotion of the mind. For Cecilia, her companions felt active love, for she was active in showing her love to them.

Active love arises spontaneously in the mind, after feeling particular instances of kindness, without reflection on the past conduct or general character; it exceeds the merits of its object, and is connected with a feeling of generosity, rather than with a sense of justice.

Without determining which species of love is the more flattering to others, we can easily decide which is the most agreeable feeling to our own minds; we give our hearts more credit for being generous than for being just; and we feel more self-complacency when we give our love voluntarily, than when we yield it as a tribute which we cannot withhold. Though Cecilia's companions might not know all this in theory, they proved it in practice; for they loved her in a much higher proportion to her merits than they loved Leonora.

Each of the young judges were to signify their choice by putting a red or a white shell into a vase prepared for the purpose. Cecilia's colour was red, Leonora's white. In the morning nothing was to be seen but these shells, nothing talked of but the long-expected event of the evening. Cecilia, following Leonora's example, had made it a point of honour not to inquire of any individual her vote previous to their final determination.

They were both sitting together in Louisa's room; Louisa was recovering from the measles. Every one, during her illness, had been desirous of attending her; but Leonora and Cecilia were the only two that were permitted to see her, as they alone had had the distemper. They were both assiduous in their care of Louisa; but Leonora's want of exertion to overcome any disagreeable feelings of sensibility often deprived her of presence of mind, and prevented her being so constantly useful as Cecilia. Cecilia, on the contrary, often made too much noise and bustle with her officious assistance, and was too anxious to invent amusements and procure comforts for Louisa, without perceiving that illness takes away the power of enjoying them.

As she was sitting in the window in the morning, exerting herself to entertain Louisa, she heard the voice of an old pedlar who often used to come to the house. Down stairs she ran immediately to ask Mrs. Villars's permission to bring him into the hall.

Mrs. Villars consented, and away Cecilia ran to proclaim the news to her companions; then first returning into the hall, she found the pedlar just unbuckling his box, and taking it off his shoulders. "What would you be pleased to want, Miss?" said he. "I've all kinds of tweezer-cases, rings, and lockets of all sorts," continued he, opening all the glittering drawers successively.

"Oh!" said Cecilia, shutting the drawer of lockets which tempted her most. "These are not the things which I want; have you any china figures, any mandarins?"

"Alack-a-day, Miss, I had a great stock of that same china ware, but now I'm quite out of them kind of things; but I believe," said he, rummaging in one of the deepest drawers, "I believe I have one left, and here it is."

"Only three shillings, ma'am." Cecilia paid the money, and was just going to carry off the mandarin, when the pedlar took out of his greatcoat pocket a neat mahogany case; it was about a foot long, and fastened at each end by two little clasps; it had besides a small lock in the middle.

"It's only a china figure, Miss, which I am going to carry to an elderly lady, who lives nigh at hand, and who is mighty fond of such things."

It was a figure of Flora, crowned with roses, and carrying a basket of flowers in her hand. Cecilia contemplated it with delight. "How I should like to give this to Louisa," said she to herself; and at last breaking silence, "Did you promise it to the old lady?"

"O no, Miss; I didn't promise it—she never saw it; and if so be that you'd like to take it, I'd make no more words about it."

Cecilia immediately produced the box in which she kept her treasure, and emptying it upon the table, she began to count the shillings; alas! there were but six shillings.

"How provoking!" said she. "Then I can't have it—where's the mandarin? O I have it," said she, taking it up, and looking at it with the utmost disgust. "Is this the same that I had before?"

"Yes, Miss, the very same," replied the pedlar, who, during this time, had been examining the little box out of which Cecilia had taken her money; it was of silver.

"Why, ma'am," said he, "since you've taken such a fancy to the piece, if you've a mind to make up the remainder of the money, I will take this here little box, if you care to part with it."

"No," said Cecilia hastily, blushing a little, and stretching out her hand to receive it.

"Oh, Miss!" said he, returning it carelessly. "I hope there's no offence; I meant but to serve you, that's all. Such a rare piece of china-work has no cause to go a begging," added he, putting the Flora deliberately into the case; then turning the key with a jerk, he let it drop into his pocket: and lifting up his box by the leather straps, he was preparing to depart.

"Oh, stay one minute!" said Cecilia, in whose mind there had passed a very warm conflict during the pedlar's harangue. "Louisa would so like this Flora," said she, arguing with herself; "besides, it would be so generous in me to give it to her instead of that ugly mandarin; that would be doing only common justice, for I promised it to her, and she expects it. Though, when I come to look at this mandarin, it is not even so good as hers was; the gilding is all rubbed off, so that I absolutely must buy this for her. O yes, I will, and she will be so delighted! And then every body will say it is the prettiest thing they ever saw, and the broken mandarin will be forgotten forever."

Here Cecilia's hand moved, and she was just going to decide: "O! But stop," said she to herself; "consider Leonora gave me this box, and it is a keepsake. However, now we have quarreled, and I dare say that she would not mind my parting with it; I'm sure that I should not care if she was to give away my keepsake the smelling bottle, or the ring which I gave her. So what does it signify; besides, is it not my own, and have I not a right to do what I please with it?"

At this dangerous instant for Cecilia, a party of her companions opened the door; she knew that they came as purchasers, and she dreaded her Flora's becoming the prize of some higher bidder.

"Here," said she, hastily putting the box into the pedlar's hand, without looking at it; "take it, and give me the Flora."

Her hand trembled, though she snatched it impatiently. She ran by, without seeming to mind any of her companions—she almost wished to turn back.

Let those who are tempted to do wrong by the hopes of future gratification, or the prospect of certain concealment and impunity, remember that, unless they are totally depraved, they bear in their own hearts a monitor who will prevent their enjoying what they have ill obtained.

In vain Cecilia ran to the rest of her companions, to display her present, in hopes that the applause of others would restore her own self-complacency; in vain she saw the Flora pass in due pomp from hand to hand, each vieing with the other in extolling the beauty of the gift and the generosity of the giver. Cecilia was still displeased with herself, with them, and even with their praise; from Louisa's gratitude, however, she yet expected much pleasure, and immediately she ran up stairs to her room.

In the mean time Leonora had gone into the hall to buy a bodkin; she had just broken hers. In giving her change, the pedlar took out of his pocket, with some half-pence, the very box which Cecilia had sold him. Leonora did not in the least suspect the truth, for her mind was above suspicion; and besides, she had the utmost confidence in Cecilia.

"I should like to have that box," said she, "for it is like one of which I was very fond."

The pedlar named the price, and Leonora took the box; she intended to give it to little Louisa.

On going to her room she found her asleep, and she sat down softly by her bed-side. Louisa opened her eyes.

"It is only a little box; would you like to have it? I bought it on purpose for you, as I thought perhaps it would please you; because it's like that which I gave Cecilia."

"O yes! That out of which she used to give me Barbary drops. I am very much obliged to you. I always thought that exceedingly pretty; and this, indeed, is as like it as possible. I can't unscrew it; will you try?"

"Goodness!" exclaimed Louisa. "This must be Cecilia's box; look, don't you see a great L at the bottom of it?"

Leonora's colour changed. "Yes," she replied calmly, "I see that, but it is no proof that it is Cecilia's; you know that I bought this box just now of the pedlar."

"That may be," said Louisa; "but I remember scratching that L with my own needle, and Cecilia scolded me for it, too. Do go and ask her if she has lost her box—do," repeated Louisa, pulling her by the sleeve, as she did not seem to listen.

Leonora indeed did not hear, for she was lost in thought; she was comparing circumstances which had before escaped her attention. She recollected that Cecilia had passed her as she came into the hall, without seeming to see her, but had blushed as she passed. She remembered that the pedlar appeared unwilling to part with the box, and was going to put it again into his pocket with the half-pence.

"And why should he keep it in his pocket and not show it with his other things?"

Combining all these circumstances, Leonora had no longer any doubt of the truth; for though she had honourable confidence in her friends, she had too much penetration to be implicitly credulous.

"Louisa," she began, but at this instant she heard a step, which, by its quickness, she knew to be Cecilia's, coming along the passage. "If you love me, Louisa," said Leonora, "say nothing about the box."

Cecilia opened the door, came forward smiling, as if secure of a good reception, and, taking the Flora out of the case, she placed it on the mantel-piece, opposite to Louisa's bed.

"Yes, I know it is; and I meant that it should be so. I should only have done what I was bound to do if I had only given you a mandarin."

"Well, and that would have been enough, surely; but what a beautiful crown of roses! And then that basket of flowers! They almost look as if I could smell them. Dear Cecilia! I'm very much obliged to you, but I won't take it by way of payment for the mandarin you broke; for I'm sure you could not help that; and, besides, I should have broken it myself by this time. You shall give it to me entirely, and I'll keep it as long as I live as your keepsake."

Louisa stopped short and coloured. The word keepsake recalled the box to her mind, and all the train of ideas which the Flora had banished.

"But," said she, looking up wishfully in Cecilia's face, and holding the Flora doubtfully, "did you—"

Leonora, who was just quitting the room, turned her head back, and gave Louisa a look, which silenced her.

Cecilia was so infatuated with her vanity, that she neither perceived Leonora's sign, nor Louisa's confusion, but continued showing off her present, by placing it in various situations, till at length she put it into the case, and laying it down with an affected carelessness upon the bed. "I must go now, Louisa. Good bye," said she, running up and kissing her; "but I'll come again presently;" then clapping the door after her, she went.

But as soon as the fermentation of her spirits subsided, the sense of shame, which had been scarcely felt when mixed with so many other sensations, rose uppermost in her mind.

"What?" said she to herself. "Is it possible that I have sold what I promised to keep for ever? And what Leonora gave me? And I have concealed it too, and have been making a parade of my generosity. O! What would Leonora, what would Louisa, what would every body think of me, if the truth were known?"

Humiliated and grieved by these reflections, Cecilia began to search in her own mind for some consoling idea. She began to compare her conduct with the conduct of others of her own age; and at length, fixing her comparison upon her brother George, as the companion of whom, from her infancy, she had been habitually the most emulous, she recollected that an almost similar circumstance had once happened to him, and that he had not only escaped disgrace, but had acquired glory by an intrepid confession of his fault. Her father's words to her brother, on that occasion, she also perfectly recollected.

"Come to me, George," he said, holding out his hand; "you are a generous, brave boy. They who dare to confess their faults will make great and good men."

These were his words; but Cecilia, in repeating them to herself, forgot to lay that emphasis on the word men, which would have placed it in contradistinction to the word women. She willingly believed that the observation extended equally to both sexes, and flattered herself that she should exceed her brother in merit, if she owned a fault which she thought that it would be so much more difficult to confess.

"Yes, but," said she, stopping herself, "how can I confess it? This very evening, in a few hours, the prize will now decided; Leonora or I shall win it. I have as good a chance as Leonora, perhaps a better; and must I give up all my hopes? All that I have been labouring for this month past! O, I never can;—if it were to-morrow, or yesterday, or any day but this, I would not hesitate, but now I am almost certain of the prize, and if I win it—well, why then I will—I think, I will tell all—yes, I will; I am determined," said Cecilia.

Here a bell summoned them to dinner. Leonora sat opposite to her, and she was not a little surprised to see Cecilia look so gay and unrestrained.

"Surely," said she to herself, "if Cecilia had done this, that I suspect, she would not, she could not look as she does."

But Leonora little knew the cause of her gayety; Cecilia was never in higher spirits, or better pleased with herself; than when she had resolved upon a sacrifice or a confession.

All eyes glanced first at Cecilia and then at Leonora. Cecilia smiled; Leonora blushed.

"How can she be so happy?" said Leonora to herself. "O, Cecilia, there was a time when you could not have neglected me so!—When we were always together, the best of friends and companions, our wishes, tastes, and pleasures the same. Surely she did once love me," said Leonora; "but now she is quite changed. She has even sold my keepsake, and would rather win a bracelet of hair from girls whom she did not always think so much superior to Leonora, than have my esteem, my confidence, and my friendship, for her whole life; yes, for her whole life, for I am sure she will be an amiable woman. Oh that this bracelet had never been thought of, or that I was certain of her winning it; for I am certain that I do not wish to win it from her. I would rather, a thousand times rather, that we were as we used to be, than have all the glory in the world. And how pleasing Cecilia can be when she wishes to please! How candid she is! How much she can improve herself!—Let me be just, though she has offended me—she is wonderfully improved within this last month; for one fault, and that against myself, should I forget all her merits?"

As Leonora said these last words, she could but just hear the voices of her companions; they had left her alone in the gallery. She knocked softly at Louisa's door.

"Come in," said Louisa. "I'm not asleep. Oh," said she, starting up with the Flora in her hand, the instant that the door was opened. "I'm so glad you are come, Leonora, for I did so long to hear what you were all making such a noise about—have you forgot that the bracelet—"

"Well, here's my white shell for you. I've kept it in my pocket this fortnight; and though Cecilia did give me this Flora, I still love you a great deal better."

"Thank you, Louisa," said Leonora, gratefully "I will take your shell, and I shall value it as long as I live. But here is a red one, and if you wish to show me that you love me, you will give this to Cecilia. I know that she is particularly anxious for your preference, and I am sure that she deserves it."

"Yes, if I could, I would choose both of you; but you know I can only choose which I like the best."

"If you mean, my dear Louisa," said Leonora, "that you like me the best, I am very much obliged to you; for, indeed I wish you to love me; but it is enough for me to know it in private. I should not feel the least more pleasure at hearing it in public, or in having it made known to all my companions, especially at a time when it would give poor Cecilia a great deal of pain."

"Nay, Louisa, surely you don't think Cecilia jealous; she only tries to excel and to please. She is more anxious to succeed than I am, it is true, because she has a great deal more activity, and perhaps more ambition; and it would really mortify her to lose this prize. You know that she proposed it herself; it has been her object for this month past, and I am sure she has taken great pains to obtain it."

"Indeed, my dear, it would be no loss to me; and, if it were, I would willingly suffer it for Cecilia; for, though we seem not to be such good friends as we used to be, I love her very much, and she will love me again, I'm sure she will; when she no longer fears me as a rival, she will again love me as a friend."

Here Leonora heard a number of her companions running along the gallery. They all knocked hastily at the door, calling, "Leonora! Leonora! Will you never come? Cecilia has been with us this half hour."

"O, I'm sure, by the way they speak to you, that they won't give you the prize!" said the little Louisa; and the tears started into her eyes.

"They love me though, for all that; and as for the prize, you know whom I wish to have it."

"Leonora! Leonora!" called her impatient companions. "Don't you hear us? What are you about?"

"O, she never will take any trouble about any thing," said one of the party; "let's go away."

"O go! Go! Make haste," cried Louisa; "don't stay, they are so angry—I will, I will, indeed!"

"Remember, then, that you have promised me," said Leonora, and she left the room.

During all this time Cecilia had been in the garden with her companions. The ambition which she had felt to win the first prize, the prize of superior talents and superior application, was not to be compared to the absolute anxiety which she now expressed to win this simple testimony of the love and approbation of her equals and rivals.

To employ her exuberant activity, she had been dragging branches of lilacs, and laburnums, roses, and sweet-briar, to ornament the bower in which her fate was to be decided. It was excessively hot, but her mind was engaged, and she was indefatigable. She stood still, at last, to admire her works; her companions all joined in loud applause. They were not a little prejudiced in her favour by the great eagerness which she expressed to win their prize, and by the great importance which she seemed to affix to the preference of each individual.

At last, "Where is Leonora?" cried one of them, and immediately, as we have seen, they ran to call her.

Cecilia was left alone. Overcome with heat and too violent exertion, she had hardly strength to support herself; each moment appeared to her intolerably long; she was in a state of the utmost suspense, and all her courage failed her; even hope forsook her, and hope is a cordial which leaves the mind depressed and enfeebled.

"The time is now come," said Cecilia; "in a few moments it will be decided. In a few moments! Goodness! How much I do hazard! If I should not win the prize, how shall I confess what I have done? How shall I beg Leonora to forgive me? I, who hoped to restore my friendship to her as an honour!—They are gone to seek for her—the moment she appears I shall be forgotten—what shall—what shall I do?" said Cecilia, covering her face with her hands.

Such was her situation, when Leonora, accompanied by her companions, opened the hall door; they most of them ran forward to Cecilia. As Leonora came into the bower, she held out her hand to Cecilia—"We are not rivals, but friends, I hope," said she.

Caroline, one of her friends, came forward first, and then all the others successively.

Cecilia's emotion was hardly conceivable.—"Now they are all in. Count them, Caroline!"

"No, they are not," exclaimed Cecilia, pressing forward and putting a shell into the vase—"I have not given mine, and I give it to Leonora." Then snatching the bracelet, "It is yours, Leonora," said she; "take it, and give me back your friendship."

"I cannot be surprised at this from you, Cecilia," said Leonora; "and do you then still love me as you used to do?"

"O Leonora! Stop! Don't praise me; I don't deserve this," said she, turning to her loudly applauding companions; "you will soon despise me—O Leonora, you will never forgive me!—I have deceived you—I have sold—"

At this instant Mrs. Villars appeared—the crowd divided—she had heard all that passed from her window.

"I applaud your generosity, Cecilia," said she, "but I am to tell you that in this instance it is unsuccessful; you have it not in your power to give the prize to Leonora—it is yours—I have another vote to give you—you have forgotten Louisa."

"She commissioned me, however," said Mrs. Villars, "to give you a red shell, and you will find it in this box."

Mrs. Villars produced another box—she opened it—it contained the Flora—"And Louisa also desired me," said she, "to return you this Flora." She put it into Cecilia's hand—Cecilia trembled so that she could not hold it; Leonora caught it.

"O, madam! O, Leonora!" exclaimed Cecilia. "Now I have no hope left. I intended, I was just going to tell—"

"Dear Cecilia," said Leonora, "you need not tell it me; I know it already, and I forgive you with all my heart."

"Yes, I can prove to you," said Mrs. Villars, "that Leonora has forgiven you: it is she who has given you the prize; it was she who persuaded Louisa to give you her vote. I went to see her a little while ago, and perceiving, by her countenance, that something was the matter, I pressed her to tell me what it was.

"'Why, madam,' said she, 'Leonora has made me promise to give my shell to Cecilia. Now I don't love Cecilia half so well as I do Leonora; besides, I would not have Cecilia think I vote for her because she gave me a Flora.'

"Whilst Louisa was speaking," continued Mrs. Villars, "I saw the silver box lying on the bed; I took it up, and asked if it was not yours, and how she came by it.

"'Indeed, madam,' said Louisa, 'I could have been almost certain that it was Cecilia's; but Leonora gave it me, and she said that she bought it of the pedlar this morning. If any body else had told me so, I could not have believed them, because I remembered the box so well; but I can't help believing Leonora.'

"I guessed her reason. 'Well,' said I, 'give me the box, and I will carry your shell in it to Cecilia.'

"'Then, madam,' said she, 'if I must give it her, pray do take the Flora, and return it to her first, that she may not think it is for that I do it.'"

"O, generous Leonora!" exclaimed Cecilia. "But indeed, Louisa, I cannot take your shell."

"Then, dear Cecilia, accept of mine instead of it; you cannot refuse it—I only follow your example. As for the bracelet," added Leonora, taking Cecilia's hand, "I assure you I don't wish for it, and you do, and you deserve it."

"No," said Cecilia, "indeed I do not deserve it; next to you, surely, Louisa deserves it best."

"Yes," said Mrs. Villars, "and let Cecilia carry the bracelet to her; she deserves that reward. For one fault I cannot forget merits, Cecilia; nor, I am sure, will your companions."

Every body present was moved—they looked up to Leonora with respectful and affectionate admiration.

"O, Leonora, how I love you! And how I wish to be like you!" exclaimed Cecilia. "To be as good, as generous!"

"Rather wish, Cecilia," interrupted Mrs. Villars, "to be as just; to be as strictly honourable, and as invariably consistent.

"Remember that many of our sex are capable of great efforts, of making what they call great sacrifices to virtue or to friendship; but few treat their friends with habitual gentleness, or uniformly conduct themselves with prudence and good sense."

IN the pleasant valley of Ashton, there lived an elderly woman of the name of Preston; she had a small, neat cottage, and there was not a weed to be seen in her garden. It was upon her garden that she chiefly depended for support; it consisted of strawberry-beds, and one small border for flowers. The pinks and roses she tied up in nice nosegays, and sent either to Clifton or Bristol to be sold; as to her strawberries, she did not send them to market, because it was the custom for numbers of people to come from Clifton, in the summer time, to eat strawberries and cream, at the gardens in Ashton.

Now the widow Preston was so obliging, active, and good-humored, that every one who came to see her was pleased. She lived happily in this manner for several years; but, alas! One autumn she fell sick, and during her illness every thing went wrong: her garden was neglected, her cow died, and all the money which she had saved was spent in paying for medicines. The winter passed away, while she was so weak that she could earn but little by her work; and when the summer came, her rent was called for, and the rent was not ready in her little purse, as usual. She begged a few months' delay, and they were granted to her; but at the end of that time there was no resource but to sell her horse, Lightfoot.

Now Lightfoot, though perhaps he had seen has best days, was a very great favourite: in his youth he had always carried the dame to market behind her husband; and it was now her little son Jem's turn to ride him. It was Jem's business to feed Lightfoot, and to take care of him; a charge which he never neglected; for, besides being a very good-natured, he was a very industrious boy.

"It will go near to break my Jem's heart," said Dame Preston to herself, as she sat one evening beside the fire stirring the embers, and considering how she had best open the matter to her son, who stood opposite to her, eating a dry crust of bread, very heartily, for supper.

"Brave hard! I wish it was not so dark, mother, that you might just step out and see the great bed I've dug: I know you'd say it was no bad day's work—and oh, mother! I've good news; farmer Truck will give us the giant strawberries, and I am to go for 'em to-morrow morning; and I'll be back afore breakfast."

"God bless the boy, how he talks! Four miles there, and four miles back again, afore breakfast."

"I've done!" cried Jem, swallowing the last mouthful hastily, as if he thought he had been too long at supper. "And now for the great needle; I must see and mend Lightfoot's bridle afore I go to bed."

To work he set, by the light of the fire, and the dame, having once more stirred it, began again with:

"What, Lightfoot? O la, no, not he! Never was so well of his lameness in all his life—he's grown quite young again, I think; and then he's so fat, he can hardly wag."

"Lightfoot!" cried Jem, and let the bridle fall from his hand. "And will mother sell Lightfoot?"

"I must, I say, child!—Why, must not I pay my debts honestly—and must not I pay my rent? And was not it called for long and long ago? And have not I had time? And did not I promise to pay it for certain Monday fortnight? And am not I two guineas short?—And where am I to get two guineas! So what signifies talking, child?" said the widow, leaning her head upon her arm. "Lightfoot must go."

Jem was silent for a few minutes—"Two guineas; that's a great, great deal—if I worked, and worked, and worked ever so hard, I could noways earn two guineas afore Monday fortnight; could I, mother?"

"But I could earn something, though, I say," cried Jem, proudly; "and I will earn something—if it be ever so little, it will be something; and I shall do my very best; so I will."

"That I am sure of, my child," said his mother, drawing him towards her and kissing him. "You are always a good, industrious lad, that I will say, afore your face or behind your back; but it won't do now—Lightfoot must go."

Jem turned away, struggling to hide his tears, and went to bed, without saying a word more. But he knew that crying would do no good, so he presently wiped his eyes, and lay awake, considering what he could possibly do to save the horse. "If I get ever so little," he still said to himself, "it will be something; and who knows but landlord might then wait a bit longer? And we might make it all up in time; for a penny a day might come to two guineas, in time."

But how to get the first penny, was the question. Then he recollected, that one day, when he had been sent to Clifton, to sell some flowers, he had seen an old woman, with a board beside her covered with various sparkling stones, which people stopped to look at as they passed, and he remembered that some people bought the stones; one paid two-pence, another three-pence, and another six-pence for them; and Jem heard her say that she got them amongst the neighbouring rocks; so he thought that if he tried, he might find some too, and sell them as she had done.

Early in the morning he awaked, full of this scheme, jumped up, dressed himself, and having given one look at poor Lightfoot in his stable, set off to Clifton, in search of the old woman, to inquire where she found her sparkling stones. But it was too early in the morning—the old woman was not at her seat; so he turned back again, disappointed.

He did not waste his time waiting for her, but saddled and bridled Lightfoot, and went to farmer Truck's for the giant strawberries. A great part of the morning was spent in putting them into the ground.

And as soon as that was finished, he set out again in quest of the old woman, whom to his great joy, he spied sitting at her corner of the street, with her board before her. But this old woman was deaf and cross; and when at last Jem made her hear his questions, he could get no answer from her but that she found the fossils where he would never find any more.

"Look away, nobody hinders you," replied the old woman; and these were the only words she would say.

Jem was not, however, a boy to be easily discouraged; he went to the rocks and walked slowly along, looking at all the stones as he passed. Presently he came to a place where a number of men were at work loosening some large rocks, and one amongst the workmen was stooping down, looking for something very eagerly; Jem ran up, and asked if he could help him.

"Yes," said the man, "you can. I've just dropped amongst this heap of rubbish a fine piece of crystal that I got to-day."

"White, and like glass," said the man, and went on working, whilst Jem looked very carefully over the heap of rubbish for a great while.

"Come," said the man, "it's gone for ever; don't trouble yourself any more, my boy."

"It's no trouble; I'll look a little longer; we will not give it up so soon," said Jem; and after he had looked a little longer, he found the piece of crystal.

Jem, encouraged by the tone of voice in which the man spoke this, ventured to ask him the same questions which he had asked the old woman.

"One good turn deserves another," said the man. "We are going to dinner just now, and shall leave off work; wait for me here, and I'll make it worth your while."

Jem waited; and as he was very attentively observing how the workmen went on with their work, he heard somebody near him give a great yawn, and turning round, he saw stretched upon the grass, beside the river, a boy about his own age, whom he knew very well went in the village of Ashton by the name of Lazy Lawrence; a name which he most justly deserved, for he never did any thing from morning to night; he neither worked nor played, but sauntered or lounged about, restless and yawning. His father was an alehouse-keeper, and, being generally drunk, could take no care of his son; so that Lazy Lawrence grew every day worse and worse. However, some of the neighbours said that he was a good-natured, poor fellow enough, and would never do any one harm but himself; whilst others, who were wiser, often shook their heads, and told him that idleness was the root of all evil.

"What, Lawrence!" cried Jem to him, when he saw him lying upon the grass. "What! Are you asleep?"

"I don't know—because I can't find anybody to play with me to-day; will you come and play?"

"Busy," cried Lawrence, stretching himself, "you are always busy—I would not be you for the world, to have so much to do, always."

"And I," said Jem, laughing, "would not be you for the world, to have nothing to do."

So they parted, for the workman just then called Jem to follow him. He took him home to his own house, and showed him a parcel of fossils, which he had gathered he said on purpose to sell, but had never had time yet to sort them. He set about it, however, now, and having picked out those which he judged to be the best, he put them into a small basket, and gave them to Jem to sell, upon condition that he should bring him half of what he got. Jem, pleased to be employed, was ready to agree to what the man proposed, provided his mother had no objection to it. When he went home to dinner, he told his mother his scheme, and she smiled and said he might do as he pleased, for she was not afraid of his being from home.

"You are not an idle boy," said she, "so there is little danger of your getting into any mischief."

Accordingly, Jem, that evening, took his stand, with his little basket, upon the bank of the river, just at the place where people land from a ferryboat, and where the walk turns to the wells, where numbers of people perpetually pass to drink the waters. He chose his place well, and waited almost all the evening, offering his fossils with great assiduity to every passenger; but not one person bought any.

"Holla!" cried some sailors, who had just rowed a boat to land. "Bear a hand here, will you, my little fellow! And carry these parcels for us into yonder house."

Jean ran down immediately for the parcels, and did what he was asked to do so quickly, and with so much good will, that the master of the boat took notice of him, and when he was going away stopped to ask him what he had got in his little basket. And when he saw that they were fossils, he immediately told Jem to follow him, for he was going to carry some shells he had brought from abroad to a lady in the neighbourhood, who was making a grotto.

"She will very likely buy your stones into the bargain. Come along, my lad; we can but try."

The lady lived but a very little way off, so that they were soon at her house. She was alone in her parlour, and was sorting a bundle of feathers of different colours. They lay on a sheet of pasteboard upon a window-seat, and it happened that as the sailor was bustling round the table to show off his shells, he knocked down the sheet of pasteboard, and scattered all the feathers. The lady looked very sorry, which Jem observing, he took the opportunity, whilst she was busy looking over the sailor's bag of shells, to gather together all the feathers, and sort them according to their different colours, as he had seen thorn sorted when he came first into the room.

"Where is the little boy you brought with you? I thought I saw him here just now."

"And here I am, ma'am," cried Jem, creeping from under the table with some few remaining feathers which he had picked from the carpet. "I thought," added he, pointing to the others, "I had better be doing something than standing idle, ma'am."

She smiled, and pleased with his activity and simplicity, began to ask him several questions; such as who he was, where he lived, and what employment he had, and how much a day he earned by gathering fossils.

"This is the first day I ever tried," said Jem. "I never sold any yet, and, if you don't buy 'em new, ma'am, I'm afraid nobody else will, for I have asked everybody else."

"Come then," said the lady, laughing, "if that is the case, I think I had better buy them all."

So emptying all the fossils out of his basket, she put half-a-crown into it. Jew's eyes sparkled with joy.

"Oh! Thank you, ma'am," said he; "I will be sure and bring you as many more to-morrow."

"No," said the lady, "do not deceive yourself; I assure you that I will not. That, instead of encouraging you to be industrious, would teach you to be idle."

Jem did not quite understand what she meant by this, but answered, "I'm sure I don't wish to be idle. If you knew all, you'd know I did not."

"Why, mammy's horse," added Jem, looking out of the window. "I must make haste home and feed him, afore it get dark; he'll wonder what's gone with me."

"Let him wonder a few minutes longer," said the lady, "and tell me the rest of your story."

"I've no story, ma'am, to tell, but as how mammy says he must go to the fair, Monday fortnight, to be sold, if she can't get the two guineas for her rent; and I should be main sorry to part with him, for I love him, and he loves me; so I'll work for him, I will, all I can. To be sure, as mammy says, I have no chance, such a little fellow as I am, of earning two guineas afore Monday fortnight."

"But are you in earnest willing to work?" said the lady. "You know there is a great deal of difference between picking up a few stones, and working steadily every day and all day long."

"Then," said the lady, "I will give you work. Come here to-morrow morning, and my gardener will set you to weed the shrubberies, and I will pay you six-pence a day. Remember, you must be at the gates by six o'clock."

It was late in the evening, and he was impatient to get home to feed Lightfoot, yet he recollected that he had promised the man who had trusted him to sell the fossils, that he would bring him half of what he got for them. So he thought that he had better go to him directly; and away he went, running along by the water-side about a quarter of a mile, till he came to the man's house.

He was just come home from work, and was surprised when Jem showed him the half-crown, saying, "Look what I got for the stones; you are to have half you know."

"No," said the man, when he had heard his story, "I shall not take half of that; it was given to you. I expected but a shilling at the most, and the half of that is but six-pence; and that I'll take. Wife, give the lad two shillings, and take this half-crown."

So the wife opened an old glove, and took out two shillings—and the man, as she opened the glove, put in his fingers and took out a little silver penny. "There, he shall have that into the bargain, for his honesty. Honesty is the best policy. There's a lucky penny for you, that I've kept ever since I can remember."

"But," argued the wife, "another penny would do just as well to buy gingerbread; and that's what it will go for."

And so he ran away home, fed Lightfoot, stroked him, went to bed, jumped up at five o'clock in the morning, and went singing to work, as gay as a lark.

Four days he worked "every day and all day long," and the lady, every evening, when she came out to walk in her gardens, looked at his work.

"Never had so good a little boy about the grounds," said the gardener; "he's always at his work, let me come by when I will, and he has got twice as much done as another would do; yes, twice as much, ma'am; for look here—he began at this here rose-bush, and now he's got to where you stand, ma'am; and here is the day's work that t'other boy, and he's three years older too, did to-day—I say measure Jem's fairly, and it's twice as much, I'm sure."

"Well," said the lady to her gardener, "show me how much is a fair good day's work for a boy of his age."

"Come at six o'clock, and go at six? About this much, ma'am," said the gardener, marking off a piece of the border with his spade.

"Then, little boy," said the lady, "so much shall be your task every day; the gardener will mark it off for you; and, when you've done, the rest of the day you may do what you please."

Jem was extremely glad of this; and the next day he had finished his task by four o'clock; so he had all the rest of the evening to himself.

Jem was as fond of play as any little boy could be, and when he was at it, played with all the eagerness and gaiety imaginable; so, as soon as he had finished his task, fed Lightfoot, and put by the six-pence he had earned that day, he ran to the play-ground in the village, where he found a party of boys playing, and among them Lazy Lawrence, who indeed was not playing, but lounging upon a gate with his thumb in his mouth.

The rest were playing at cricket. Jem joined them, and was the merriest and most active amongst them; till at last, when quite out of breath with running, he was obliged to give up to rest himself, and sat down upon the stile, close to the gate on which Lazy Lawrence was swinging.

"I don't know well what tires me; grandmother says I'm ill, and I must take something—I don't know what ails me."

"Oh, puh! Take a good race, one, two, three, and away, and you'll find yourself as well as ever. Come, run—one, two, three, and away."

"Ah, no, I can't run indeed," said he, hanging back heavily; "you know I can play all day long if I like it, so I don't mind play as you do, who have only one hour for it."

"So much the worse for you. Come now, I'm quite fresh again; will you have one game at ball? Do."

"No, I tell you, I can't; I am tired as if I had been working all day long as hard as a horse."

"Ten times more," said Jem; "for I have been working all day long as hard as a horse, and yet you see I'm not a bit tired; only a little out of breath just now."

"That's very odd," said Lawrence, and yawned, for want of some better answer; then taking out a handful of half-pence—"See what I got from father to-day, because I asked him just at the right time, when he had drunk a glass or two; then I can get anything I want of him. See, a penny, two-pence, three-pence, four-pence—there's eight-pence in all; would you not be happy if you had eight-pence?"

"Why, I don't know," said Jem, laughing, "for you don't seem happy, and you have eight-pence."

"That does not signify, though I'm sure you only say that because you envy me—you don't know what it is to have eight-pence—you never had more than two-pence and three-pence at a time in all your life."

Jem smiled; "Oh, as to that," said he, "you are mistaken, for I have at this very time more than two-pence, three-pence, or eight-pence either I have—let me see: stones, two shillings; then five days' work, that's five six-pences, that's two shillings and six-pence, in all makes four shillings and six-pence, and my silver penny is four and seven-pence."

"Four and seven-pence—you have not," said Lawrence, roused so as absolutely to stand upright; "four and seven-pence! have you? Show it me, and then I'll believe you."

"Is it far?" said Lawrence, following, half running, half hobbling, till he came to the stable, where Jem showed him his treasure.

"Lord bless me, earned it! Well, I've a great mind to work; but then it is such hot weather; besides, grandmother says I'm not strong enough yet for hard work; and besides, I know how to coax daddy out of money when I want it, so I need not work. But four and seven-pence—let's see, what will you do with it all?"

"I can guess; I know what I'd do with it if it was mine. First, I'd buy my pockets full of gingerbread; then I'd buy never so many apples and nuts; don't you love nuts? I'd buy nuts enough to last me from this time to Christmas, and I'd make little Newton crack 'em for me, for that's the worst of nuts, there's the trouble of cracking 'em."

"But you'll give me some of yours?" said Lawrence, in a fawning tone, for he thought it easier to coax than to work. "You'll give me some of your good things, won't you?"

"Oh, I know very well what to do with it; but, as I told you, that's a secret, and I shan't tell it anybody. Come now, let's go back and play—their game's up, I dare say."

Lawrence went back with him, full of curiosity, and out of humour with himself and his eight-pence. "If I had four and seven-pence," said he to himself, "I certainly should be happy!"

The next day, as usual, Jem jumped up before six o'clock and went to his work, whilst Lazy Lawrence sauntered about without knowing what to do with himself. In the course of two days, he laid out six-pence of his money in apples and gingerbread, and as long as these lasted, he found himself well received by his companions; but at length the third day he spent his last half-penny, and when it was gone, unfortunately some nuts tempted him very much, but he had no money to pay for them; so he ran home to coax his father, as he called it.

When he got home, he heard his father talking very loud, and at first he thought he was drunk; but when he opened the kitchen door, he saw he was not drunk, but angry.

"You lazy dog!" cried he, turning suddenly upon Lawrence, and gave him such a violent box on the ear as made the light flash from his eyes. "You lazy dog! See what you have done for me,—look!—Look, look, I say!" Lawrence looked as soon as he came to the use of his senses, and with fear, amazement and remorse, beheld at least a dozen bottles burst, and the fine Worcestershire cider streaming over the floor. "Now did not I order you three days ago to carry these bottles to the cellar; and did not I charge you to wire the corks? Answer me, you lazy rascal; did not I?"

"And why was it not done? I ask you," cried his father with renewed anger, as another bottle burst at the moment. "What do you stand there for, you lazy brat? Why don't you move? I say—No, no," catching hold of him, "I believe you can't move; but I'll make you," and he shook him, till Lawrence was so giddy, he could not stand. "What had you to think of? What had you to do all day long, that you could not carry my cider, my Worcestershire cider, to the cellar, when I bade you? But go, you'll never be good for anything, you are such a lazy rascal; get out of my sight!" So saying, he pushed him out of the house-door, and Lawrence sneaked off, seeing that this was no time to make his petition for half-pence.

The next day he saw the nuts again, and wishing for them more than ever, went home in hopes that his father, as he said to himself, would be in a better humour. But the cider was still fresh in his recollection, and the moment Lawrence began to whisper the word half-penny in his ear, his father swore with a loud oath,—

"I will not give you a half-penny, no not a farthing, for a month to come; if you want money, go work for it; I've had enough of your laziness—go work!"

At these terrible words, Lawrence burst into tears, and going to the side of a ditch, sat down and cried for an hour. And, when he had cried till he could cry no more, he exerted himself so far as to empty his pockets, to see whether there might not be one half-penny left; and, to his great joy, in the farthest corner of his pocket one half-penny was found.

With this he proceeded to the fruit woman's stall. She was busy weighing out some plums, so he was obliged to wait; and whilst he was waiting, he heard some people near him talking and laughing very loud. The fruit woman's stall was at the gate of an inn-yard; and, peeping through the gate into this yard, Lawrence saw a postillion and stable-boy about his own size, playing at pitch-farthing. He stood by watching them for a few minutes.

"I began with but one half-penny," cried the stable-boy with an oath, "and now I have got two-pence!" added he, jingling the half-pence in his waistcoat pocket.

Lawrence was moved at the sound, and said to himself, "If I begin with one half-penny, I may end like him with having two-pence; and it is easier to play at pitch-farthing than to work."

So he stepped forward, presenting his half-penny, offering to toss up with the stable-boy, who, after looking him full in the face, accepted the proposal, and threw his half-penny into the air—"Head or tail?" cried he.

He seized the penny, surprised at his own success, and would have gone instantly to have laid it out in nuts, but the stable-boy stopped him and tempted him to throw again. This time he lost; he threw again and won; and so he went on, sometimes losing, but most frequently winning, till half the morning was gone. At last, however, he chanced to win twice running, and finding himself master of three half-pence, said he would play no more.

The stable-boy, grumbling, swore he would have his revenge another time, and Lawrence went and bought the nuts.

"It is a good thing," said he to himself, "to play at pitch-farthing; the next time I want a half-penny, I'll not ask my father for it, nor go to work neither."

Satisfied with this resolution, he sat down to crack his nuts at his leisure, upon the horse-block, in the inn-yard. Here, whilst he ate, he overheard the conversation of the stable-boys and postillions. At first their shocking oaths and loud wranglings frightened and shocked him; for Lawrence, though a lazy, had not yet learned to be a wicked boy.

But, by degrees, he was accustomed to their swearing and quarrelling, and took a delight and interest in their disputes and battles. As this was an amusement which he could enjoy without any sort of exertion on his part, he soon grew so fond of it, that every day he returned to the stable-yard, and the horse-block became his constant seat. Here he found some relief from the insupportable fatigue of doing nothing, and here hour after hour, with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, he sat, the spectator of wickedness. Gaming, cheating, and lying soon became familiar to him; and to complete his ruin, he formed a sudden and close intimacy with the stable-boy, with whom he at first began to game—a very bad boy. The consequences of this intimacy we shall presently see.

One day after he had finished his task, the gardener asked him to stay a little while, to help him to carry some geranium pots into the hall. Jem, always active and obliging, readily stayed from play, and was carrying in a heavy flower-pot, when his mistress crossed the hall.

"What a terrible litter," said she, "you are making here!—Why don't you wipe your shoes upon the mat?"

"O," said the lady, recollecting herself, "I can't blame you, for there is no mat."

"No, ma'am," said the gardener, "nor I don't know when, if ever, the man will bring home those mats you bespoke, ma'am."

"I am very sorry to hear that," said the lady; "I wish we could find somebody who would do them, if he can't—I should not care what sort of mats they were, so that one could wipe one's feet on them."

Jem, as he was sweeping away the litter, when he heard these last words, said to himself, "Perhaps I could make a mat."

And all the way home, as he trudged along whistling, he was thinking over a scheme for making mats, which, however bold it may appear, he did not despair of executing with patience and industry. Many were the difficulties which his "prophetic eye" foresaw; but he felt within himself that spirit which spurs men on to great enterprises, and makes them "trample on impossibilities."

He recollected in the first place, that he had seen Lazy Lawrence, whilst he lounged upon the gate, twist a bit of heath into different shapes, and he thought, that if he could find some way of plaiting heath firmly together, it would make a very pretty green, soft mat, which would do very well for one to wipe one's shoes on. About a mile from his mother's house, on the common winch Jem rode over when he went to farmer Truck's for the giant strawberries, he remembered to have seen a great quantity of this heath; and, as it was now only six o'clock in the evening, he knew that he should have time to feed Lightfoot, stroke him, go to the common, return, and make one trial of his skill before he went to bed.

Lightfoot carried him swiftly to the common, and there Jem gathered as much of the heath as he thought he should want. But what toil! What time! What pains did it cost him, before he could make any thing like a mat! Twenty times he was ready to throw aside the heath, and give up his project, from impatience of repeated disappointments. But still he persevered. Nothing truly great can be accomplished without toil and time. Two hours he worked before he went to bed.

All his play hours the next day he spent at his mat; which in all, made five hours of fruitless attempts. The sixth, however, repaid him for the labours of the other five; he conquered his grand difficulty of fastening the heath substantially together; and at length completely finished a mat, which far surpassed his most sanguine expectations. He was extremely happy—sung—danced round it—whistled—looked at it again and again, and could hardly leave off looking at it when it was time to go to bed. He laid it by his bed-side, that he might see it the moment he awoke in the morning.

And now came the grand pleasure of carrying it to his mistress. She looked full as much surprised as he expected, when she saw it, and when she heard who made it. After having duly admired it, she asked him how much he expected for his mat.

"Expect!—Nothing, ma'am," said Jem. "I meant to give it you if you'd have it; I did not mean to sell it. I made it at my play hours, and I was very happy making it; and I'm very glad too that you like it; and if you please to keep it, Ma'am—that's all."

"But that's not all," said the lady. "Spend your time no more in weeding my garden; you can employ yourself much better; you shall have the reward of your ingenuity as well as of your industry. Make as many more such mats as you can, and I will take care and dispose of them for you."

"Thank'e, ma'am," said Jem, making his best bow, for he thought by the lady's looks that she meant to do him a favour, though he repeated to himself, "Dispose of them! What does that mean?"

The next day he went to work to make more mats, and he soon learned to make them so well and quickly, that he was surprised at his own success. In every one he made, he found less difficulty, so that, instead of making two, he could soon make four, in a day. In a fortnight, he made eighteen. It was Saturday night when he finished, and he carried, at three journeys, his eighteen mats to his mistress's house, piled them all up in the hall, and stood with his hat off, with a look of proud humility, beside the pile, waiting for his mistress's appearance. Presently a folding door, at one end of the hall, opened, and he saw his mistress, with a great many gentlemen and ladies, rising from several tables.

Jem modestly retired whilst they looked at his mats; but in a minute or two his mistress beckoned to him, and when he came into the middle of the circle, he saw that his pile of mats had disappeared.

"Well," said the lady, smiling, "what do you see that makes you look so surprised?"

"Are we!" said the lady. "Well, take up your hat and go home then, for you see it is getting late, and you know Lightfoot will wonder what's become of you."

But how his countenance changed! The hat was heavy with shillings. Every one who had taken a mat had put in two shillings; so that for the eighteen mats, he had got thirty-six shillings.

"Thirty-six shillings!" said the lady. "Five and seven-pence I think you told me you had earned already—how much does that make? I must add, I believe, one other six-pence to make out your two guineas."

"Two guineas!" exclaimed Jem, now quite conquering his bashfulness, for at the moment he forgot where he was, and saw nobody that was by.

Then recollecting himself; he saw his mistress, whom he now looked up to quite as a friend.

"Will you thank them all," said he, scarcely daring to glance his eye round upon the company, "will you thank 'em? For you know I don't know how to thank 'em rightly."

"Now we won't keep you any longer—only," said his mistress, "I have one thing to ask you, that I may be by when you show your treasure to your mother."

"Not now," said the lady laughing, "but I will come to Ashton to-morrow evening; perhaps your mother can find me a few strawberries."

He now went home, it, a great restraint to wait till to-morrow evening before he told his mother.

To console himself, he flew to the stable. "Lightfoot, you're not to be sold to-morrow! Poor fellow!" said he, patting him, and then could not refrain from counting out his money Whilst he was intent upon this, Jem was startled by a noise at the door; somebody was trying to pull up the latch. It opened, and there came in Lazy Lawrence, with a boy in a red jacket, who had a cock under his arm. They started when they got into the middle of the stable, and when they saw Jem, who had been at first hidden behind the horse.

"We—we—we—came—" stammered Lazy Lawrence—"I mean, I came to—to—to—"

"To ask you," continued the stable-boy in a bold tone, "whether you will go with us to the cock-fight on Monday? See, I've a fine cock here, and Lawrence told me you were a great friend of his, so I came."

Lawrence now attempted to say something in praise of the pleasures of cock-fighting, and in recommendation of his new companion.

But Jem looked at the stable-boy with dislike, and a sort of dread; then turning his eyes upon the cock with a look of compassion, said in a low voice to Lawrence, "Shall you like to stand by and see its eyes pecked out?"

"I don't know," said Lawrence, "as to that; but they say a cock-fight is a fine sight, and it's no more cruel in me to go than another; and a great many go; and I've nothing else to do, so I shall go."

"But," continued Lawrence, "you know Monday is the great Bristol fair, and one must be merry then, of all days in the year."

"One day in the year, sure there's no harm in being merry," said the stable-boy.

"I hope not," said Jem, "for I know, for my part, I am merry every day in the year."

"That's very odd," said Lawrence; "but I know, for my part, I would not for all the world miss going to the fair, for at least it will be something to talk of for half a year after—come, you'll go, won't you?"

"No," said Jem, still looking as if he did not like to talk before the ill-looking stranger.

"I'll tell you about that another time," whispered Jem; "and don't you go to see that cock's eyes pecked out; it won't make you merry, I'm sure."

"Come," cried the stable-boy, seizing his stretching arm, "come along," cried he; and pulling him away from Jem, upon whom he cast a look of extreme contempt, "leave him alone; he is not the sort. What a tool you are," said he to Lawrence the moment he got him out of the stable; "you might have known he would not go, else we should soon have trimmed him out of his four and seven-pence. But how came you to talk of four and seven-pence? I saw in the manger a hatful of silver."

"Yes, indeed—but why did you stammer so when we first got in? you had liked to have blown us all up."

"Ashamed! But you must not talk of shame now. You are in for it, and I shan't let you off; you owe us half-a-crown, recollect, and I must be paid to-night, so see and get the money somehow or other."

After a considerable pause, he added, "I'll answer for it he'd never miss half-a-crown out of all that silver."

"But to steal," said Lawrence, drawing back with horror; "I never thought I should come to that—and from poor Jem too—the money that he has worked so hard for too."

"But it is not stealing; we don't mean to steal, only to borrow it; and if we win, as we certainly shall, at the cock-fight, pay it back again, and he'll never know anything of the matter; and what harm will it do him? Besides, what signifies talking, you can't go to the cock-fight, or the fair either, if you don't; and I tell ye we don't mean to steal it; we'll pay it again on Monday night."

Lawrence made no reply, and they parted without his coming to any determination.

Here let us pause in our story—we are almost afraid to go on—the rest is very shocking—our little readers will shudder as they read. But it is better that they should know the truth, and see what the idle boy came to at last.

In the dead of the night Lawrence heard somebody tap at his window. He knew well who it was, for this was the signal agreed upon between him and his wicked companion. He trembled at the thoughts of what he was about to do, and lay quite still, with his head under the bed-clothes, till he heard the second tap. Then he got up, dressed himself, and opened his window. It was almost even with the ground.

When he got to the stable, a black cloud was just passing over the moon, and it was quite dark.

"Where are you?" whispered Lawrence, groping about. "Where are you? Speak to me."

"Is that your hand?" said the wicked boy, as Lawrence laid hold of him. "How cold it felt!"

"It is no time to go back," replied the other, opening the door; "you've gone too far now to go back;" and he pushed Lawrence into the stable. "Have you found it? Take care of the horse—have you done? What are you about? Make haste, I hear a noise," said the stable-boy, who watched at the door.

"Bring all together." He brought Jem's broken flower-pot, with all the money in it, to the door.

The black cloud was now passed over the moon, and the light shone full upon them.

"What do we stand here for?" said the stable-boy, snatching the flower-pot out of Lawrence's trembling hands, and pulling him away from the door.

"Goodness!" cried Lawrence. "You won't take all—you said you'd only take half-a-crown, and pay it back on Monday—you said you'd only take half-a-crown!"

"Hold your tongue," replied the other, walking on, deaf to all remonstrances. "If I am to be hanged ever, it shan't be for half-a-crown."

Lawrence's blood ran cold in his veins, and he felt as if all his hair stood on end. Not another word passed.

His accomplice carried off the money, and Lawrence crept, with all the horrors of guilt upon him, to his restless bed. All night he was starting from frightful dreams; or else, broad awake, he lay listening to every small noise, unable to stir, and scarcely daring to breathe—tormented by that most dreadful of all kinds of fear, that fear which is the constant companion of an evil conscience. He thought the morning would never come; but when it was day, when he heard the birds sing, and saw everything look cheerful as usual, he felt still more miserable.

It was Sunday morning, and the bell rang for church. All the children of the village, dressed in their Sunday clothes, innocent and gay, and little Jem, the best and gayest among them, went flocking by his door to church.

"Well, Lawrence," said Jem, pulling his coat as he passed, and saw Lawrence leaning against his father's door, "what makes you look so black?"

"Nay, then," said Jem, "you look white enough, now, if that will please you; for you've turned as pale as death."

"Pale!" replied Lawrence, not knowing what he said; and turned abruptly away, for he dared not stand another look of Jem's conscious that guilt was written in his face, he shunned every eye. He would now have given the world to have thrown off the load of guilt which lay upon his mind; he longed to follow Jem, to fall upon his knees, and confess all. Dreading the moment when Join should discover his loss, Lawrence dared not stay at home, and not knowing what to do, or where to go, he mechanically went to his old haunt at the stable-yard, and lurked thereabouts all day, with his accomplice, who tried in vain to quiet his fears and raise his spirits by talking of the next day's cock-fight.

It was agreed that, as soon as the dusk of the evening came on, they should go together into a certain lonely field, and there divide their booty.

In the meantime, Jem, when he returned from church, was very full of business, preparing for the reception of his mistress, of whose intended visit he had informed his mother. And whilst she was arranging the kitchen and their little parlour, he ran to search the strawberry-beds.

"Why, my Jem, how merry you are to-day!" said his mother, when he came in with the strawberries, and was jumping about the room playfully. "Now keep those spirits of yours, Jem, till you want 'em, and don't let it come upon you all at once. Have it in mind that to-morrow is fair-day, and Lightfoot must go. I bade farmer Truck call for him to-night; he said he'd take him along with his own, and he'll be here just now—and then I know how it will be with you, Jem!"

"So do I!" cried Jem, swallowing his secret with great difficulty, and then tumbling head over heels four times running.

A carriage passed the window and stopped at the door. Jem ran out; it was his mistress. She came in smiling, and soon made the old woman smile too, by praising the neatness of everything in the house. But we shall pass over, however important they were deemed at the time, the praises of the strawberries, and of "my grandmother's china plate." Another knock was heard at the door.

"Run, Jem," said his mother; "I hope it's our milk-woman with cream for the lady."

The old woman's countenance fell. "Fetch him out, dear," said she, turning to her son.

But Jem was gone; he flew out to the stable the moment he saw the flap of farmer Truck's great coat.

"Sit ye down, farmer," said the old woman, after they had waited about five minutes in expectation of Jem's return. "You'd best sit down, if the lady will give you leave, for he'll not hurry himself back again. My boy's a fool, madam, about that 'ere horse."

Trying to laugh, she added, "I knew how Lightfoot and he would be loth enough to part—he won't bring him out till the last minute; so do sit ye down, neighbour."

The farmer had scarcely sat down, when Jem, with a pale wild countenance, came back.

"What's the matter?" said his mistress. "God bless the boy," said his mother, looking at him quite frightened, whilst he tried to speak, but could not. She went up to him, and then, leaning his head against her, he cried, "It's gone! It's all gone!" And bursting into tears, he sobbed as if his heart would break.

"My two guineas—Lightfoot's two guineas. I went to fetch 'em to give you, mammy; but the broken flower-pot that I put them in and all's gone—quite gone!" repeated he, checking his sobs. "I saw them safe last night, and was showing 'em to Lightfoot; and I was so glad to think I had earned 'em all myself; and thought how surprised you'd look, and how glad you'd be, and how you'd kiss me, and all!"

His mother listened to him with the greatest surprise, whilst his mistress stood in silence, looking first at the old woman, and then at Jem with a penetrating eye, as if she suspected the truth of his story, and was afraid of becoming the dupe of her own compassion. "This is a very strange thing!" said she gravely. "How came you to leave all your money in a broken flower-pot in the stable? How came you not to give it to your mother to take care of?"

"Why, don't you remember," said Jem, looking up in the midst of his tears, "why, don't you remember you your own self bade me not to tell her about it till you were by?"

"Nay, ask mammy," said Jem, a little offended; and when afterwards the lady went on questioning him in a severe manner, as if she did not believe him, he at last made no answer.

"I have spoke, and spoke the truth," said Jem proudly, "and she did not believe me."

Still the lady, who had lived too long in the world to be without suspicion, maintained a cold manner, and determined to wait the event without interfering, saying only, she hoped the money would be found; and advised Joni to have done crying.

And as he had the greatest command over himself, he actually did not shed another tear, not even when the farmer got up to go, saying he could wait no longer.

The lady now took her seat where she could see all that passed at the open parlour window.

The old woman stood at the door, and several idle people of the village, who had gathered round the lady's carriage examining it, turned about to listen.

In a minute or two Jem appeared, with a steady countenance, leading Lightfoot; and when he came up, without saying a word, put the bridle into farmer Truck's hand.

"He 'is' a good horse!" cried Jem, and threw his arm over Lightfoot's neck, hiding his own face as he leaned upon him.

At this instant a party of milk-women went by; and one of them, having set down her pail, came behind Jem, and gave him a pretty smart blow upon the back.

"Do you so? And you'll tell me just now," said she, half opening her hand, "that you forget who gave you this, and who charged you not to part with it too."

Here she quite opened her large hand, and on the palm of it appeared Jem's silver penny.

"Where," exclaimed Jem, seizing it, "O where did you find it? And have you—O tell me, have you got the rest of my money?"

"I don't know nothing of your money—I don't know what you would be at," said the milk-woman.

"With them that you gave it to, I suppose," said the milk-woman, turning away suddenly to take up her milk pail.

But now Jem's mistress called to her through the window, begging her to stop, and joining in his entreaties to know how she came by the silver penny.

"Why, madam," said she, taking up the corner of her apron, "I came by it in an odd way too. You must know my Betty is sick, so I come with the milk myself, though it's not what I'm used to; for my Betty—you know my Betty," said she, turning round to the old woman, "my Betty serves you, and she's a tight and stirring lassy, ma'am, I can assure—"

"Yes, I don't doubt it," said the lady impatiently; "but about the silver penny?"

"Why, that's true. As I was coming along all alone, for the rest came around, and I came a short cut across yon field—No, you can't see it, madam, where you stand, but if you were here—"

"Well—well—I rested my pail upon the stile, and sets me down awhile, and there comes out of the hedge—I don't know well how, for they startled me so I'd like to have thrown down my milk—two boys, one about the size of he," said she, pointing to Jem, "and one a matter taller, but ill-looking like, so I did not think to stir to make way for them, and they were like in a desperate hurry; so, without waiting for the stile, one of 'em pulled at the gate, and when it would not open, for it was tied with a pretty stout cord, one of 'em whips out his knife and cuts it. Now have you a knife about you, sir?" continued the milk-woman to the farmer.

"Here now, ma'am, just sticking as it were here, between the blade and the haft, was the silver penny. He took no notice, but when he opened it out, it falls. Still he takes no heed, but cuts the cord as I said before, and through the gate they went, and out of sight in half a minute. I picks up the penny, for my heart misgave me that it was the very one husband had a long time, and had given against my voice to he," pointing to Jem; "and I charged him not to part with it; and, ma'am, when I looked I knew it by the mark, so I thought I would show it to he," again pointing to Jem, "and let him give it back to those it belongs to."

"But," cried the farmer, "those boys have robbed him—it is they who have all his money."

"No, no," said the lady, calling to her servant; and she desired him to take his horse and ride after them.

"Ay," added farmer Truck, "do you take the road and I'll take the field way, and I'll be bound we'll have 'em presently."

Whilst they were gone in pursuit of the thieves, the lady, who was now thoroughly convinced of Jem's truth, desired her coachman would produce what she had ordered him to bring with him that evening. Out of the boot of the carriage the coachman immediately produced a new saddle and bridle.

Confused reports of Lightfoot's splendid accoutrements, of the pursuit of the thieves, and of the fine and generous lady who was standing at dame Preston's window, quickly spread through the village, and drew every body from their houses. They crowded round Jem to hear the story.

The children especially, who were all fond of him, expressed the strongest indignation against the thieves. Every eye was on the stretch; and now some who had run down the lane came back shouting, "Here they are! They've got the thieves!"

The footman on horseback carried one boy before him, and the farmer, striding along, dragged another. The latter had on a red jacket, which Jem immediately recollected, and scarcely dared to lift his eyes to look at the boy on horseback.

"Good heavens!" said he to himself. "It must be—yet surely it can't be Lawrence!"

The footman rode on as fast as the people would let him. The boy's hat was slouched, and his head hung down, so that nobody could see his face.

At this instant there was a disturbance in the crowd. A man who was half drunk pushed his way forwards, swearing that nobody should stop him; that he had a right to see, and he "would" see. And so he did; for forcing through all resistance, he staggered up to the footman just as he was lifting down the boy he had carried before him.

"I 'will'—I tell you I 'will' see the thief!" cried the drunken man, pushing up the boy's hat.

"Lawrence!" exclaimed the wretched father. The shock sobered him at once, and he hid his face in his hands.

There was an awful silence. Lawrence fell on his knees, and, in a voice that could scarcely be heard, made a full confession of all the circumstances of his guilt.

"Such a young creature so wicked! What could put such wickedness into your head?"

While this was saying, the farmer was emptying Lazy Lawrence's pockets, and when the money appeared, all his former companions in the village looked at each other with astonishment and terror.

Their parents grasped their little hands closer, and cried, "Thank God! He is not my son. How often, when he was little, we used, as he lounged about, to tell him that idleness was the root of all evil?"

As for the hardened wretch, his accomplice, every one was impatient to have him sent to jail. He had put on a bold, insolent countenance, till he heard Lawrence's confession—till the money was found upon him, and he heard the milk-woman declare that she would swear to the silver penny which he had dropped. Then he turned pale, and betrayed the strongest signs of fear.

"We must take him before the justice," said the farmer, "and he'll be lodged in Bristol jail."

"O," said Jem, springing forwards when Lawrence's hands were going to be tied, "let him go—won't you—can't you let him go?"

"Yes, madam, for mercy's sake," said Jem's mother to the lady; "'think what a disgrace to his family to be sent to jail."

"Don't ask the lady to speak for him," said the farmer; "it's better he should go to Bridewell now, than to the gallows by-and-by."

Lawrence was sent to Bridewell for a month, and the stable-boy was transported to Botany Bay.

During Lawrence's confinement, Jem often visited him, and carried him such little presents as he could afford to give; and Jem could afford to be "generous," because he was "industrious."

Lawrence's heart was touched by his kindness, and his example struck him so forcibly, that when his confinement was ended, he resolved to set immediately to work. And, to the astonishment of all who knew him, soon became remarkable for industry; he was found early and late at his work, established a new character, and for ever lost the name of LAZY LAWRENCE.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The fireside story book

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