'^^'''::^wT' 
 
 FVPDUO^'c&aiUUiMIUUrHt'tU--.'' 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LIBRAKy 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Emily Turner 
 
** The guinea, — the guinea, sir, that you got from this cLild! " — ^Page35 
 
By MARIA EDGEWORTH. CHARLES LAMB. 
 MARY LAMB. ALICIA C.MANV OTHERS. 
 •ILLUSTRATED- 
 
 NEW YORK 
 MCLOUGMLIN BROTHFRS 
 
Copyright, 1906, by 
 McLouGHLiN Bros.. New York. 
 
 PSYCW. 
 LIBRARy 
 
CH-V-t 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Blue Jar 5 
 
 The Basket Woman 1^ 
 
 The Sea Voyage ^^ 
 
 The Changeling ^^ 
 
 The Inquisitive Girl "^ 
 
 The Little Blue Bag • ... 81 
 
 2*79 
 
The moment it was on the table Rosamond ran up to it with an 
 exclamation of joy. 
 
p>^/ 
 
 OOK^ 
 
 THE BLUE JAR. 
 
 MARIA EDGE WORTH 
 
 ROSAMOND, a little girl about seven years 
 of age, was walking with her mother in 
 the streets of London. As she passed along she 
 looked in at the windows of several shops, and 
 saw a great variety of different sorts of things, 
 of which she did not know the use or even the 
 names. She wished to stop to look at them, but 
 there was a great number of people in the streets, 
 and a great many carts, carriages, and wheel- 
 barrows, and she was afraid to let go her mother's 
 hand. 
 
 'Oh, mother, how happy I should be,' she said, 
 as she passed a toy-shop, ' if I had all these pretty 
 things !' 
 
 ' What, all! Do you wish for them all, Rosa- 
 mond?' 
 
 'Yes, mother, all.' 
 
 As she spoke they came to a milliner's shop, the 
 windows of which were decorated with ribands 
 and lace and festoons of artificial flowers. 
 
6 THE BLUE JAR 
 
 *0h mother, what beautiful roses! Won't you 
 buy some of them?' 
 
 'No, my dear.' 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 'Because I don't want them, my dear.' 
 
 They went a httle farther, and came to another 
 shop, which caught Rosamond's eye. It was a 
 jeweller's shop, and in it were a great many 
 pretty baubles, ranged in drawers behind glass. 
 
 'Mother, will you buy some of these?' 
 
 'Which of them, Rosamond?' 
 
 'Which? I don't know which; any of them 
 will do, for they are all pretty.' 
 
 'Yes, they are all pretty ; but of what use would 
 they be to me?' 
 
 'Use! Oh, I'm sure you could find some use 
 or other for them if you would only buy them 
 first.' 
 
 'But I would rather find out the use -first.' 
 
 'Well, then, mother, there are buckles; you 
 know that buckles are useful things, very useful 
 things.' 
 
 'I have a pair orbuckles; I don't want another 
 pair,' said her mother, and walked on. Rosa- 
 mond was very sorry that her mother wanted 
 nothing. Presently, however, they came to a 
 shop which appeared to her far more beautiful 
 than the rest. It was a chemist's shop, but she 
 did not know that. 
 
 'Oh, mother, oh!' cried she, pulling her mother's 
 hand, 'look, look! — blue, green, red, yellow^ and 
 
THE BLUE JAR 7 
 
 purple! Oh, mother, what beautiful things t 
 Won't you buy some of these?' 
 
 Still her mother answered as before : 'Of what 
 use would they be to me, Rosamond?' 
 
 'You might put flowers in them, mother, and 
 they would look so pretty on the chimney-piece. 
 I wish I had one of them.' 
 
 'You have a flower-pot,' said her mother, 'and 
 that is not a flower-pot.' 
 
 'But I could use it for a flower-pot, mother, 
 you know.' 
 
 'Perhaps, if you were to see it nearer, if you 
 were to examine it, you might be disappointed.' 
 
 'No, indeed, I'm sure I should not; I should 
 like it exceedingly.' 
 
 Rosamond kept her head turned to look at the 
 blue vase till she could see it no longer. 
 
 'Then, mother,' said she, after a pause, 'perhaps 
 you have no money.' 
 
 'Yes, I have.' 
 
 'Dear me! if I had money I would buy roses, 
 and boxes, and buckles, and blue flower-pots, 
 and everything.' Rosamond was obliged to 
 pause in the midst of her speech. 'Oh, mother, 
 would you stop a minute for me? I have got a 
 stone in my shoe; it hurts me very much.' 
 
 'How comes there to be a stone in your shoe?' 
 
 'Because of this great hole, mother ; it comes in 
 there. My shoes are quite worn out. I wish you 
 would be so very good as to give me another pair. 
 
 'Nay, Rosamond, but I have not money enough 
 
8 THE BLUE JAR 
 
 to buy shoes, and flower-pots, and buckles, and 
 boxes, and everything.' 
 
 Rosamond thought that was a great pity. 
 But now her foot, which had been hurt by the 
 stone, began to give her so much pain that she 
 was obliged to hop every other step, and she could 
 think of nothing else. They came to a shoe- 
 maker's shop soon afterwards. 
 
 'There, there, mother, there are shoes; there are 
 little shoes that would just fit me, and you know 
 shoes would be really of use to me.' 
 
 *Yes, so they would, Rosamond. Come in.' 
 She followed her mother into the shop. 
 
 Mr. Sole, the shoemaker, had a great many cus- 
 tomers, and his shop was full, so they were 
 obliged to wait. 
 
 'Well, Rosamond,' said her mother, 'you don't 
 think this shop so pretty as the rest?' 
 
 'No, not nearly ; it is black and dark, and there 
 are nothing but shoes all round, and, besides, 
 there's a very disagreeable smell.' 
 
 'That smell is the smell of new leather.' 
 
 'Is, it? Oh,' said Rosamond looking round 
 'there is a pair of little shoes; they'll just fit me, 
 I'm sure.' 
 
 'Perhaps they might, but you cannot be sure 
 till you have tried them on, any more than you 
 can be quite sure that you should like the blue 
 vase exceedingly till you have examined it more 
 attentively.' 
 
 'Why, I don't know about the shoes, certainly. 
 
THE BLUE JAR 9 
 
 till I have tried; but, mother, I am quite sure 
 that I should like the flower-pot.' 
 
 'Well, which would you rather have — that jar 
 or a pair of shoes? I will buy either for you.' 
 
 'Dear mother, thank 3^ou ! but if you could buv 
 both?' 
 
 'No, not both.' 
 
 'Then the jar, if you please.' 
 
 But I should tell you, that in that case I shall 
 not give you another pair of shoes this month.' 
 
 'This month! that's a very long time indeed! 
 You can't think how these hurt me. I believe 
 I'd better have the new shoes. Yet, that blue 
 flower-pot. Oh, indeed, mother, these shoes are 
 not so very very bad ! I think I might wear them 
 a little longer, and the month will soon be over. I 
 can make them last till the end of the month, can't 
 I? Don't you think so, mother?' 
 
 'Nay, my dear, I want you to think for your- 
 self; you will have time enough to consider the 
 matter whilst I speak to Mr, Sole about my 
 clogs.' 
 
 Mr. Sole was by this time at leisure, and whilst 
 her mother was speaking to him Rosamond stood 
 in profound meditation, with one shoe on and the 
 other in her hand. 
 
 'Well, my dear, have you decided?' 
 
 'Mother! yes, I believe I have. If you please, 
 I should like to have the flower-pot; that is, if you 
 won't think me very silly, mother.' 
 
 'Why, as to that, I can't promise you, Rosa- 
 
10 THE BLUE JAR 
 
 mond; but, when you have to judge for yourself » 
 you should choose what will make you happy, and 
 then it would not signify who thought you silly.' 
 
 'Then, mother, if that's all, I'm sure the flower- 
 pot would make me happy,' said she, putting on 
 her old shoe again; 'so I choose the flower-pot.' 
 
 * Very well, you shall have it. Clasp your shoe, 
 and come home.' 
 
 Rosamond clasped her shoe and ran after her 
 mother. It was not long before the shoe came 
 down at the heel, and many times she was obliged 
 to stop to take the stones out of it, and she often 
 limped with pain; but still the thoughts of the 
 blue flower-pot prevailed, and she persisted in 
 her choice. 
 
 When they came to the shop with the large 
 window Rosamond felt much pleasure upon hear- 
 ing her mother desire the servant who was with 
 them to buy the blue jar, and bring it home. 
 He had other commissions, so he did not return 
 with them. Rosamond as soon as she got in ran 
 to gather all her own flowers, which she kept in a 
 corner of her mother's garden. 
 
 'I am afraid they'll be dead before the flower- 
 pot comes, Rosamond,' said her mother to her, as 
 she came in with the flowers in her lap. 
 
 *No, indeed, mother; it will come home very 
 soon, I dare say. I shall be very happy putting 
 them into the blue flower-pot.' 
 
 'I hope so, my dear.' 
 
 The servant was much longer returning home 
 
THE BLUE JAR 11 
 
 than Rosamond had expected; but at length he 
 came, and brought with him the long-wished-f or 
 jar. The moment it was set down upon the table, 
 Rosamond ran up to it with an exclamation of 
 joy. *I may have it now, mother?' 
 
 *Yes, my dear! it is yours.' 
 
 Rosamond poured the flowers from her lap 
 upon the carpet, and seized the blue flower-pot. 
 
 *Oh, dear mother,' cried she, as soon as she had 
 taken off* the top, *but there's something dark in 
 it which smells very disagreeably. What is it? 
 I didn't want this black stuff*.' 
 
 Wor I, my dear.' 
 
 *But what shall I do with it, mother?' 
 
 'That I cannot tell.' 
 
 *It will be of no use to me, mother.' 
 
 *That I cannot help.' 
 
 *But I must pour it out, and fill the flower-p/)t 
 with water.' 
 
 *As you please, my. dear.' 
 
 *Will you lend me a bowl to pour it into, 
 mother?' 
 
 *That was more than I promised you, my dear, 
 but I will lend you a bowl.' 
 
 The bowl was produced, and Rosamond pro- 
 ceeded to empty the blue vase. But she experi- 
 enced much surprise and disappointment on find- 
 ing, when it was entirely empty, that it was no 
 longer a blue vase. It was a plain white glass 
 jar, which had appeared to have that beautiful 
 
12 THE BLUE JAR 
 
 colour merely from the liquor with which it had 
 been filled. 
 
 Little Rosamond burst into tears. 
 
 'Why should you cry, my dear?' said her 
 mother; 'it will be of as much use to you now as 
 ever for a flower-pot.' 
 
 'But it won't look so pretty on the chimney- 
 piece. I am sure, if I had known that it was 
 not really blue, I should not have wished to 
 have it so much.* 
 
 'But did'nt I tell you that you had not exam- 
 ined it, and that perhaps you would be disap- 
 pointed?' 
 
 'And so I am disappointed, indeed. I wish I 
 had believed you at once. Now I had much rather 
 have the shoes, for I shall not be able to walk all 
 this month; even walking home that little way 
 hurt me exceedingly. Mother, I will give you 
 the flower-pot back again, and that blue stuff 
 and all, if you'll only give me the shoes.' 
 
 'No, Rosamond; you must abide by your own 
 choice, and now the best thing you can possibly 
 do is to bear your disappointment with good hu- 
 mour.' 
 
 'I will bear it as well as I can,' said Rosamond, 
 wiping her eyes; and she began slowly and sor- 
 rowfully to All the vase with flowers. 
 
 But Rosamond's disappointment did not end 
 here. Many were the difficulties and distresses 
 into which her imprudent choice brought her be- 
 fore the end of the month. Every day her shoes 
 
THE BLUE JAR 13 
 
 grew worse and worse, till at last she could neither 
 run, dance, jump, nor walk in them. Whenever 
 Rosamond was called to see anything, she was 
 detained pulling her shoes up at the heels, and was 
 sure to be too late. Whenever her mother was 
 going out to walk, she could not take Rosamond 
 with her, for Rosamond had no soles to her shoes ; 
 and at length, on the very last day of the month, 
 it happened that her father proposed to take her, 
 with her brother, to a glasshouse which she had 
 long wished to see. She was very happy; but 
 when she was quite ready, had her hat and gloves 
 on, and was making haste downstairs to her 
 brother and father, who were waiting for her at 
 the hall-door, the shoe dropped off. She put it 
 on again in a great hurry, but as she was going 
 across the hall her father turned roimd. 'Why 
 are you walking slipshod? no one must walk slip- 
 shod with me. Why, Rosamond,' said he, look- 
 ing at her shoes with disgust, *I thought that you 
 were always neat. Go; I cannot take you with 
 me.' 
 
 Rosamond coloured and retired. *Oh, mother,' 
 said she, as she took off her hat, 'how I wish that I 
 had chosen the shoes! They would have been of 
 so much more use to me than that jar. However, 
 I am sure — no, not quite sure, but I hope I shall 
 be wiser another time.' 
 
*Look, grandmother— look at my icotcher!" 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 MARIA EDGE WORTH. 
 
 AT the foot of a steep, slippery, white hill, 
 near Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, called 
 Chalk Hill, there is a hut, or rather a hovel, which 
 travellers would scarcely suppose could be inhab- 
 ited, if they did not see the smoke rising from its 
 peaked roof. An old woman lived in this hovel, 
 many years ago, and with her a little boy and girl, 
 the children of a beggar who died and left these 
 orphans perishing with hunger. They thought 
 themselves very happy when the good old woman 
 first took them into her hut, and bid them warm 
 themselves at her small fire, and gave them a crust 
 of mouldy bread to eat. She had not much to 
 give, but what she had she gave with goodwill. 
 She was very kind to these poor children, and 
 worked hard at her spinning-wheel and at her 
 knitting to support herself and them. She 
 earned money also in another way. She used 
 to follow all the carriages as they went up Chalk 
 Hill, and when the horses stopped to take breath 
 or to rest themselves, she put stones behind the 
 carriage-wheels to prevent them from rolling 
 backwards down the steep, slippery hill. 
 
 The little boy and girl loved to stand beside the 
 good-natured old woman's spinning wheel when 
 
 15 
 
16 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 she was spinning, and to talk to her. At these 
 times she taught them something, which she said 
 she hoped they would remember all their lives. 
 She explained to them what is meant by telling 
 the truth, and what it is to be honest. She taught 
 them to dislike idleness, and to wish that they 
 could be useful. 
 
 One evening, as they were standing beside her, 
 the little boy said to her: 'Grandmother' — for 
 that was the name by which she liked that these 
 children should call her — 'grandmother, how 
 often you are forced to get up from your spin- 
 ning-wheel, and to follow the chaises and coaches 
 up that steep hill, to put stones underneath the 
 wheels to hinder them from rolling back! The 
 people who are in the carriages give you a half- 
 penny or a penny for doing so, don't they?' 
 
 'Yes, child.' 
 
 'But it is very hard work for you to go up and 
 down that hill. You often say that you are 
 tired. And then you know that you cannot spin 
 all that time. Now, if we might go up the hill, 
 and put the stones behind the wheels, you could 
 sit still at your work; and would not the people 
 give us the halfpence? and could not we bring 
 them all to you? Do, pray, dear grandmother, 
 try us for one day — to-morrow will you?' 
 
 'Yes,' said the old woman, 'I will try what you 
 can do ; but I must go up the hill along with you 
 for the first two or three times, for fear you 
 should get yourselves hurt.' 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 1? 
 
 So the next day the little boy and girl went 
 with their grandmother, as they used to call her, 
 up the steep hill, and she showed the boy how to 
 prevent the .wheels from rolling back by putting 
 stones behind them, and she said: *This is called 
 scotching the wheels,' and she took off the boy's 
 hat and gave it to the little girl to hold up to the 
 carriage-windows ready for the halfpence. 
 
 When she thought that the children knew how 
 to manage by themselves she left them and re- 
 turned to her spinning-wheel. A great many 
 carriages happened to go by this day, and the 
 little girl received a great many halfpence. She 
 carried them all in her brother's hat to her grand- 
 mother in the evening, and the old woman smiled 
 and thanked the children. She said that they had 
 been useful to her, and that her spinning had 
 gone on finely, because she had been able to sit 
 still at her wheel all day. 
 
 *But, Paul, my boy,' said she, 'what is the mat- 
 ter with your hand?' 
 
 *Only a pinch — only one pinch that I got as I 
 was putting a stone behind a wheel of a chaise. 
 It does not hurt me much, grandmother, and I've 
 thought of a good thing for to-morrow. I shall 
 never be hurt again if you will only be so good as 
 to give me the old handle of the broken crutch, 
 grandmother, and the block of wood that lies in 
 the chimney-corner, and that is of no use. I'll 
 make it of some use, if I may have it.' 
 
 *Take it, then, dear,' said the old woman, 'and 
 
18 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 you'll find the handle of the broken crutch under 
 my bed.' 
 
 Paul went to work immediately, and fastened 
 one end of the pole into the block of wood, so as 
 to make something like a dry-rubbing brush. 
 
 *Look, grandmother — look at my scotcher! I 
 call this thing my scotcher/ said Paul, 'because I 
 shall always scotch the wheels with it. I shall 
 never pinch my fingers again; my hands, you see, 
 will be safe at the end of this long stick. And, 
 Sister Anne, you need not be at the trouble of 
 carrying any more stones after me up the hill; 
 we shall never want stones any more. My 
 scotcher will do without anything else, I hope. I 
 wish it was morning, and that a carriage would 
 come, that I might run up the hill and try my 
 scotcher.' 
 
 'And I wish that as many chaises may go by 
 to-morrow as there did to-day, and that we may 
 bring you as many halfpence, too, grandmother,' 
 said the little girl. 
 
 'So do I, my dear Anne,' said the old woman, 
 'for I mean that you and your brother shall have 
 all the money that you get to-morrow. You may 
 buy some ginger bread for yourselves, or some of 
 those ripe plums that you saw at the fruit-stall 
 the other day, which is just going into Dunstable. 
 I told you then that I could not afford to buy 
 such things for you, but now that you can earn 
 halfpence for yourselves, children, it is fair you 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 19 
 
 should taste a ripe plum and bit of gingerbread 
 for once and a way in your lives.' 
 
 'We'll bring some of the gingerbread home to 
 her, shan't we, brother?' whispered little Anne. 
 
 The morning came, but no carriages were heard 
 though Paul and his sister had risen at five o'clock 
 that they might be sure to be ready for early 
 travellers. Paul kept his scotcher poised upon 
 his shoulder, and watched eagerly at his station 
 at the bottom of the hill. He did not wait long 
 before a carriage came. He followed it up the 
 hill, and the instant the postillion called to him 
 and bade him stop the wheels, he put his scotcher 
 behind them, and found that it answered the pur- 
 pose perfectly well. 
 
 Many carriages went by this day, and Paul and 
 Anne received a great many halfpence from the 
 travellers. 
 
 When it grew dusk in the evening Anne said 
 to her brother: 'I don't think any more carriages 
 will come by to-day. Let us count the halfpence, 
 and carry them home now to grandmother.' 
 
 'No, not yet,' answered Paul; 'let them alone — 
 let them lie still in the hole where I have put them. 
 I dare say more carriages will come by before it 
 is quite dark, and then we shall have more half- 
 pence.' 
 
 Paul had taken the halfpence out of his hat, 
 and he had put them into a hole in the high bank 
 by the roadside, and Anne said she would not 
 meddle with them, and that she would wait till 
 
20 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 her brother liked to count them; and Paul said: 
 'If you will stay and watch here, I will go and 
 gather some blackberries for you in the hedge in 
 yonder field. Stand you hereabouts, half-way 
 up the hill, and the moment you see any carriage 
 coming along the road run as fast as you can and 
 call me.' 
 
 Anne waited a long time, or what she thought 
 a long time, and she saw no carriage and she 
 trailed her brother's scotcher up and down till she 
 was tired. Then she stood still and looked again, 
 and she saw no carriage, so she went sorrowfully 
 into the field and to the hedge where her brother 
 was gathering blackberries, and she said : 
 
 'Paul, I'm sadly tired — sadly tired!' said she, 
 'and my eyes are quite strained with looking for 
 chaises. No more chaises will come to-night, and 
 your scotcher is lying there, of no use, upon the 
 ground. Have not I waited long enough for to- 
 day, Paul?' 
 
 'Oh no,' said Paul. 'Here are some black- 
 berries for you; you had better wait a little bit 
 longer. Perhaps a carriage might go by whilst 
 you are standing here talking to me.' 
 
 Anne, who was of a very obliging temper, and 
 who liked to do what she was asked to do, went 
 back to the place where the scotcher lay, and 
 scarcely had she reached the spot when she heard 
 the noise of a carriage. She ran* to call her 
 brother, and, to their great joy, they now saw 
 four chaises coming towards them. Paul, as 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 21 
 
 soon as they went up the hill, followed with his 
 scotcher. First he scotched the wheels of one 
 carriage, then of another; and Anne was so much 
 delighted with observing how well the scotcher 
 stopped the wheels, and how much better it was 
 than stones, that she forgot to go and hold her 
 brother's hat to the travellers for halfpence, till 
 she was roused by the voice of a little rosy girl 
 who was looking out of the window of one of the 
 chaises. *Come close to the chaise-door,' said the 
 little girl; 'here are some halfpence for you.' 
 
 Anne held the hat, and she afterwards went on 
 to the other carriages. Money was thrown to her 
 from each of them, and when they had all gotten 
 safely to the top of the hill, she and her brother 
 sat down upon a large stone by the roadside to 
 count their treasure. First they began by count- 
 ing what was in the hat — *One, two, three, four 
 halfpence.' 
 
 'But, oh, brother, look at this!' exclaimed 
 Anne ; 'this is not the same as the other halfpence.' 
 
 'No, indeed, it is not,' cried Paul; 'it is no half- 
 penny. It is a guinea — a bright golden guinea!' 
 
 'Is it?' said Anne, who had never seen a guinea 
 in her life before, and who did not know its value, 
 'and will it do as well as a halfpenny to buy gin- 
 gerbread? I'll run to the fruit-stall and ask the 
 woman, shall I ?' 
 
 'No, no,' said Paul, 'you need not ask any wo- 
 man, or anybody but me. I can tell you all about 
 it as well as anybody in the whole world.' 
 
22 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 *The whole trorld! Oh, Paul, you forgot. 
 Not so well as my grandmother.' 
 
 'Why, not so well as my grandmother, perhaps ; 
 but, Anne, I can tell you that you must not talk 
 yourself, Anne, but you must listen to me quietly, 
 or else you won't understand what I am going to 
 tell you; for I can assure you that I don't think I 
 quite understood it myself, Anne, the first time 
 my grandmother told it to me, though I stood 
 stock-still listening my best.' 
 
 Prepared by this speech to hear something 
 very difficult to be understood, Anne looked v ery 
 grave, and her brother explained to her that with 
 a guinea she might buy two hundred and fifty- 
 two times as many plums as she could get for a 
 penny. 
 
 *Why, Paul, you know the fruit-woman said 
 she would give us a dozen plums for a penny. 
 Now, for this little guinea would she give us two 
 hundred and fifty-two dozen?' 
 
 'If she has so many, and if we like to have so 
 many, to be sure she will,' said Paul; 'but I think 
 we should not like to have two hundred and fifty- 
 two dozen of plums; we could not eat such a 
 number.' 
 
 'But we could give some of them to my grand- 
 mother,' said Anne. 
 
 'But still there would be too many for her, and 
 for us, too,' said Paul, 'and when we had eaten 
 the plums there would be an end to all the plea- 
 sure. But now I'll tell you what I am thinking 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 25 
 
 of, Anne, that we might buy something for my 
 grandmother that would be very useful to her in- 
 deed with the guinea — something that would last 
 a great while.' 
 
 *What, brother? What sort of thing?' 
 
 * Something that she said she wanted very much 
 last winter, when she was so ill with the rheuma- 
 tism — something that she said yesterday, when 
 you were making her bed, she wished she might be 
 able to buy before next winter.' 
 
 'I know, I know what you mean!' said Anne — 
 *a blanket. Oh, yes, Paul, that will be much bet- 
 ter than plums; do let us buy a blanket for her. 
 How glad she will be to see it ! I will make her 
 bed with the new blanket, and then bring her to 
 look at it. But, Paul, how shall we buy a blan- 
 ket? Where are blankets to be got?' 
 
 'Leave that to me; I'll manage that. I know 
 where blankets can be got; I saw one hanging out 
 of a shop the day I went last to Dunstable.' 
 
 'You have seen a great many things at Dun- 
 stable, brother.' 
 
 'Yes, a great many; but I never saw anything 
 there or anywhere else that I wished for half so 
 much as I did for the blanket for niy grand- 
 mother. Do you remember how she used to 
 shiver with the cold last winter? I'll buy the 
 blanket to-morrow. I'm going to Dunstable 
 with her spinning.' 
 
 'And you'll bring the blanket to me, and I shall 
 
24 
 
 *We might buy something very useful with the guinea.". 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 25 
 
 make the bed very neatly. That will be all right 
 — all happy!' said Anne, clapping her hands. 
 
 'But stay! Hush! don't clap your hands so, 
 Anne. It will not be all happy, I'm afraid,' said 
 Paul, and his countenance changed, and he looked 
 very grave. 'It will not be all right, I'm afraid, 
 for there's one thing we have neither of us 
 thought of, but that we ought to think about. 
 We cannot buy the blanket, I'm afraid.' 
 
 'Why— Paul, why?' 
 
 'Because I don't think this guinea is honestly 
 ours.' 
 
 'Nay, brother, but I'm sure it is honestly ours. 
 It was given to us, and grandmother said all that 
 was given to us to-day was to be our own.' 
 
 'But who gave it to you, Anne?' 
 
 'Some of the people in those chaises^ Paul. I 
 don't know which of them, but I dare say it was 
 the little rosy girl.' 
 
 'No,' said Paul, 'for when she called you to the 
 chaise door she said, "Here's some halfpence for 
 you." Now, if she gave you the guinea, she must 
 have given it to you by mistake.' 
 
 'Well, but perhaps some of the people in the 
 other chaises gave it to me, and did not give it to 
 me by mistake, Paul. There was a gentleman 
 reading in one of the chaises, and a lady, who 
 looked very good-naturedly at me, and then the 
 gentleman put down his book, and put his head 
 out of the window and looked at your scotcher, 
 brother, and he asked me if that was your own 
 
26 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 making; and when I said yes, and that I was your 
 sister, he smiled at me, and put his hand into his 
 waistcoat pocket, and threw a handful of half- 
 pence into the hat, and I dare say he gave us the 
 guinea along with them because he liked your 
 scotcher so much.' 
 
 'Why,' said Paul, 'that might be, to be sure, but 
 I wish I was quite certain of it.' 
 
 *Then, as we are not quite certain, had not we 
 best go and asR my grandmother what she thinks 
 about it?' 
 
 Paul thought this was excellent advice, and he 
 was not a silly boy who did not like to follow good 
 advice. He went with his sister directly to his 
 grandmother, showed her the guinea and told her 
 how they came by it. 
 
 *My dear honest children,' said she, 'I am very 
 glad you told me all this. I am very glad that 
 you did not buy either the plums or the blanket 
 with this'guinea. I'm sure it is not honestly ours. 
 Those who threw it you gave ft you by mistake, I 
 warrant, and what I would have you do is to go 
 to Dunstable, and try if you can at either of the 
 inns find out the person who gave it to you. It is 
 now so late in the evening that perhaps the trav- 
 ellers will sleep at Dunstable instead of going on 
 the next stage ; and it is likely that whosoever gave 
 you a guinea instead of a halfpenny has found 
 out their mistake by this time. All you can do is 
 to go and inquire for the gentleman who was 
 reading in the chaise.' 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 27 
 
 *0h !' interrupted Paul, 'I know a good way of 
 finding him out. I remember it was a dark-green 
 chaise with red wheels, and I remember I read 
 the innkeeper's name upon the chaise, "John Nel- 
 son." (I am much obliged to you for teaching 
 me to read, grandmother. ) You told me yester- 
 day, grandmother, that the names written upon 
 chaises are the innkeepers to whom they belong. 
 I read the name of the innkeeper upon that chaise. 
 It was John Nelson. So Anne and I will go to 
 both the inns in Dunstable, and try to find out 
 this chaise — John Nelson's. Come, Anne, let us 
 set out before it gets quite dark.' 
 
 Anne and her brother passed with great cour- 
 age the tempting stall that was covered with gin- 
 gerbread and ripe plums, and pursued their way 
 steadily through the streets of Dunstable; but 
 Paul, when he came to the shop where he had 
 seen the blanket, stopped for a moment, and said : 
 'It is a great pity, Anne, that the guinea is not 
 ours. However, we are doing what is honest, and 
 that is a comfort. Here, we must go through 
 this gateway into the inn-yard; we are come to 
 the Dun Cow.' 
 
 'Cow !' said Anne, 'I see no cow.' 
 
 'Look up, and you'll see the cow OTer your 
 head,' said Paul — 'the sign, the picture. Come, 
 never mind looking at it now ; I want to find out 
 the green chaise that has John Nelson's name 
 upon it.' 
 
 Paul pushed forward through a crowded pas- 
 
28 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 sage tiU he got into the inn-yard. There ^tas a 
 great noise and bustle. The ostlers were carry- 
 ing in luggage ; the postillions were rubbing down 
 the horses, or rolling the chaises into the coach- 
 house. 
 
 *What now? What business have you here, 
 pray?' said a waiter, whoialmost ran over Paul as 
 he was crossing the yard in a great hurry to get 
 some empty bottles from the bottle-rack. 
 *YouVe no business here, crowding up the yard. 
 .Walk off, young gentleman, if you please.' 
 
 'Pray give me leave, sir,' said Paul, 'to stay a 
 few minutes to look amongst these chaises for one 
 dark-green chaise with red wheels that has Mr. 
 John Nelson's name written upon it.' 
 
 'What's that he says about a dark-green 
 chaise?' said one of the postillions. 
 
 'What should such a one as he is know about 
 chaises?' interrupted the hasty waiter, and he was 
 going to turn Paul out of the yard ; but the ostler 
 caught hold of his arm, and said: 'Maybe the 
 child has some business here ; let's know what he 
 has to say for himself.' 
 
 The waiter was at this instant luckily obliged 
 to leave them to attend the bell, and Paul told his 
 business to the ostler, who as soon as he saw the 
 guinea and heard the story shook Paul by the 
 hand, and said: 'Stand steady, my honest lad. 
 I'll find the chaise for you, if it is to be found 
 here; but John Nelson's chaises almost always 
 drive to the Black Bull.' 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 29 
 
 After some difficulty the green chaise with 
 John Nelson's name upon it, and the postillion 
 who drove that chaise, were found, and the pos- 
 tillion told Paul that he was just going into the 
 parlour to the gentleman he had driven to be paid, 
 and that he would carry the guinea with him. 
 
 *No,' said Paul; Ve should like to give it back 
 ourselves/ 
 
 * Yes,' said the ostler, 'that they have a right to 
 do.' 
 
 The postillion made no reply, but looked vexed, 
 and went on towards the house, desiring the chil- 
 dren would wait in the passage till his return. In 
 the passage there was standing a decent, clean, 
 good-natured looking woman with two huge 
 straw baskets on each side of her. One of the 
 baskets stood a little in the way of the entrance. 
 A man who was pushing his way in, and carried 
 in his hand a string of dead larks hung to a pole, 
 impatient at being stopped, kicked down the 
 straw basket, and all its contents were thrown out. 
 Bright straw hats, and boxes, and slippers, were 
 all thrown in disorder upon the dirty ground. 
 
 'Oh, they will be trampled upon ! They will all 
 be spoiled!' exclaimed the woman to whom they 
 belonged. 
 
 'We'll help you to pick them up, if you will let 
 us,' cried Paul and Anne, and they immediately 
 ran to her assistance. 
 
 When the things were all safe in the basket 
 again the children expressed a desire to know 
 
30 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 how such beautiful things could be made of straw, 
 but the woman had not time to answer before the 
 postillion came out of the parlour, and with him 
 a gentleman's servant, who came to Paul, and 
 clapping him upon the back, said : 
 
 *So, my little chap, I gave you a guinea for a 
 halfpenny, I hear, and I understand you've 
 brought it back again; that's right, give me hold 
 
 of it; 
 
 *No, brother,' said Anne, 'this is not the gentle- 
 man that was reading.' 
 
 *Pooh, child! I came in Mr. Nelson's green 
 chaise. Here's the postillion can tell you so. I 
 and my master came in that chaise. I and my 
 master that was reading, as you say, and it was 
 he that threw the money out to you. He is going 
 to bed ; he is tired, and can't see you himself. He 
 desires that you'll give me the guinea.' 
 
 Paul was too honest himself to suspect that this 
 man was telling him a falsehood, and he now 
 readily produced his bright guinea, and delivered 
 it into the servant's hands. 
 
 'Here's a sixpence apiece for you, children,' 
 said he, 'and good-night to you. He pushed 
 them towards the door, but the basket-woman 
 whispered to them as they went out : 'Wait in the 
 street till I come to you.' 
 
 'Pray, Mrs. Landlady,' cried this gentleman's 
 servant, addressing himself to the landlady, who 
 just then came out of a room where some com- 
 pany at supper — 'pray., Mrs. Landlady, please to 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 31 
 
 let me have roasted larks for my supper. You 
 are famous for larks at Dunstable, and I make it 
 a rule to taste the best of everything wherever 
 I go; and, waiter, let me have a bottle of claret. 
 Do you hear?' 
 
 *Larks and claret for his supper,' said the bas- 
 ket-woman to herself as she looked at him from 
 head to foot. The postillion was still waiting, as 
 if to speak to him, and she observed them after- 
 wards whispering and laughing together. Wo 
 bad hit/ was a sentence which the servant pro- 
 nounced several times. 
 
 Now, it occurred to the basket-woman that this 
 man had cheated the children out of the guinea 
 to pay for the larks and claret, and she thought 
 that perhaps she could discover the truth. She 
 waited quietly in the passage. 
 
 'Waiter! Joe! Joe!' cried the landlady, 'why 
 don't you carry in the sweetmeat-puffs and the 
 tarts here to the company in the best parlour?' 
 
 Coming, ma'am,' anwered the waiter, and with 
 a large dish of tarts and puffs he came from 
 the bar. The landlady threw open the door of 
 the best parlour to let him in, and the basket- 
 woman had now a full view of a large cheerful 
 company, and amongst them several children, sit- 
 ting round a supper-table. 
 
 'Ay,' whispered the landlady, as the door closed 
 after the waiter and the tarts, 'there are custom- 
 ers enough, I warrant, for you in that room, if 
 you had but the luck to be called in. Pray, what 
 
32 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 wouM you have the conscience, I wonder now, to 
 charge me for these here half-dozen little mats 
 to put under my dishes?' 
 
 'A trifle, ma'am,' said the basket-woman. She 
 let the landlady have the mats cheap, and the land- 
 lady then declared she would step in and see if 
 the company in the best parlour had done supper. 
 *When they come to their wine,' added she, 'I'll 
 speak a good word for you, and get you called in 
 afore the children are sent to bed/ 
 
 The landlady, after the usual speech of */ hope 
 the supper and everything is to your liking, ladies 
 and gentlemen/ began with: 'If any of the 
 young gentlemen or ladies would have a curiosity 
 to see any of our famous Dunstable straw-work 
 there's a decent body without would, I dare say, 
 be proud to show them her pincushion-boxes, and 
 her baskets and slippers, and her other curiosities/ 
 
 The eyes of the children all turned towards 
 their mother; their mother smiled, and immediate- 
 ly their father called in the basket-woman, and 
 desired her to produce her curiosities. The chil- 
 dren gathered round her large pannier as it 
 opened, but they did not touch any of her things. 
 
 *Ah, papa,* cried a little rosy girl, 'here are a 
 pair of straw slippers that would just fit you^ I 
 think; but would not straw shoes wear out very 
 soon, and would not they let in the wet?' 
 
 'Yes, my dear,' said her father, 'but these slip- 
 pers are meant — ' 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 33 
 
 Tor powdering-slippers, miss/ interrupted the 
 basket-woman. 
 
 'To wear when people are powdering their 
 hair,' continued the gentleman, *that they may 
 not spoil their other shoes.' 
 
 'And will you buy them, papa?* 
 
 *No, I cannot indulge myself,' said her father, 
 *in buying them now. I must make amends,' said 
 he, laughing, *f or my carelessness, and as I threw 
 away a guinea to-day I must endeavour to save 
 sixpence at least.' 
 
 *Ah, the guinea that you threw by mistake in- 
 to the little girl's hat as we were coming up Chalk 
 Hill. Mamma, I wonder that the little girl did 
 not take notice of its being a guinea, and that 
 she did not run after the chaise to give it back 
 again. I should think, if she had been an honest 
 girl, she would have returned it.' 
 
 *Miss! — ma'am! — ^sir!' said the basket-woman, 
 'if it would not be impertinent, may I speak a 
 word? A little boy and girl have just been here 
 inquiring for a gentleman who gave them a 
 guinea instead of a halfpenny by mistake and not 
 five minutes ago I saw the boy give the guinea to 
 a gentleman's servant, who is there without, and 
 who said his master desired it should be returned 
 to him.' 
 
 'There must be some mistake or some trick in 
 this,' said the gentleman. *Are the children 
 gone? I must see them; send after them.' 
 
 'I'll go for them myself,' said the good-natured 
 
34 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 basket-woman. *I bid them wait in the street 
 yonder, for my mind misgave me that the man 
 who spoke so short to them was a cheat, with his 
 larks and his claret/ 
 
 Paul and Anne were speedily summoned, and 
 brought back by their friend the basket-woman; 
 and Anne, the moment she saw the gentleman, 
 knew that he was the very person who smiled upon 
 her, who admired her brother's scotcher, and who 
 threw a handful of halfpence into the hat; but 
 she could not be certain, she said, that she received 
 the guinea from him: she only thought it most 
 likely that she did. 
 
 'But I can be certain whether the guinea you 
 returned be mine or no,' said the gentleman. 'I 
 marked the guinea; it was a light one, the only 
 guinea I had, which I put into my waistcoat 
 pocket this morning.' He rang the bell, and de- 
 sired the waiter to let the gentleman who was in 
 the room opposite to him know that he wished to 
 see him. 
 
 'The gentleman in the white parlour, sir, do 
 you mean?' 
 
 'I mean the master of the servant who received 
 a guinea from this child.' 
 
 'He is a Mr. Pembroke, sir, said the waiter. 
 
 Mr. Pembroke came, and as soon as he heard 
 what had happened he desired the waiter to show 
 him to the room where his servant was at supper. 
 The dishonest servant who was supping upon 
 larks and claret, knew nothing of what was going 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN 35 
 
 on ; but his knife and fork dropped from his hand, 
 and he overturned a bumper of claret as he 
 started up from the table in great surprise and 
 terror, when his master came in with a face of in- 
 dignation, and demanded, 'The guinea — the 
 guinea, sir, that you got from this child! that 
 guinea which you said I ordered you to ask for 
 from this child!' 
 
 The servant, confounded and half intoxicated, 
 could only stammer out that he had more guineas 
 than one about him, and that he reallj'^ did not 
 know which it was. He pulled his money out, 
 and spread it upon the table with trembling 
 hands. The mark;ed guinea appeared. His 
 master instantly turned him out of his service, 
 with strong expressions of contempt. 
 
 'And now, my little honest girl,' said the gentle- 
 man who had admired her brother's scotcher, 
 turning to Anne — 'and now tell me who you are, 
 and what you and your brother want or wish for 
 most in the world.' 
 
 In the same moment Anne and Paul ex- 
 claimed : 'The thing we wish for the most in the 
 world is a blanket for our grandmother.' 
 
 'She is not our grandmother in reality, I believe 
 sir,' said Paul; 'but she is just as good to us, and 
 taught me to read, and taught Anne to knit, and 
 taught us both that we should be honest — so she 
 has, and I wish she had a new blanket before next 
 winter to keep her from the cold and the rheu- 
 matism. She had the rheumatism sadly last win- 
 
36 THE BASKET-WOMAN 
 
 ter, sir, and there is a blanket in this street that 
 would be just the thing for her.' 
 
 'She shall have it, then; and,' continued the 
 gentleman, 'I will do something more for you. 
 Do you like to be employed or to be idle best?' 
 
 *We like to have something to do always, if we 
 could, sir,' said Paul; 'but we are forced to be idle 
 sometimes, because grandmother has not always 
 things for us to do that we can do well.' 
 
 'Should you like to learn how to make such bas- 
 kets as these?' said the gentleman, pointing to one 
 of the Dunstable straw baskets. 
 
 *Oh, very much!' said Paul. 
 
 * Very much !' said Anne. 
 
 *Then I should like to teach you how to make 
 them,* said the basket-woman, *for I'm sure of 
 one thing, that you'd behave honestly to me.' 
 
 The gentleman put a guinea into the good na- 
 tured basket-woman's hand, and told her that he 
 knew she could not afford to teach them her trade 
 for nothing. *I shall come through Dunstable 
 again in a few months,' added he, 'and I hope to 
 see that you and your scholars are going on well. 
 If I find that they are I will do something more 
 for you.' 
 
 *But,' said Anne, Ve must tell all this to grand- 
 mother, and ask her about it; and I'm afraid — 
 though I'm very happy — ^that it is getting very 
 late, and that we should not stay here any longer.' 
 
 *It is a fine moonlight night,' said the basket- 
 
THE BASKET-WOMAN . 37 
 
 woman, 'and is not far. I'll walk with you, and 
 see you safe home myself.' 
 
 The gentleman detained them a few minutes 
 longer, till a messenger whom he had despatched 
 to purchase the much-wished-for blanket re- 
 turned. 
 
 'Your grandmother will sleep well upon this 
 good blanket, I hope,' said the gentleman, as he 
 gave it into Paul's opened arms. 'It has been ob- 
 tained for her by the honesty of her adopted chil- 
 dren.' 
 
**He would phow me all pretty sca-sigrhts." 3S 
 
THE SEA VOYAGE. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 1WAS born in the East Indies. I lost my 
 father and mother young. At the age of 
 five my relations thought it proper that I should 
 be sent to England for my education. I was to 
 be entrusted to the care of a young woman who 
 had a character for great humanity and discre- 
 tion; but just as I had taken leave of my friends, 
 and we were about to take our passage, the young 
 woman suddenly fell sick, and could not go on 
 board. In this unpleasant emergency, no one 
 knew how to act. The ship was at the very point 
 of sailing, and it was the last which was to sail 
 for the season. At length the captain, who was 
 known to my friends, prevailed upon my relation 
 who had come with us to see us embark to leave 
 the young woman on shore, and to let me embark 
 separately. There was no possibility of getting 
 any other female attendant for me in the short 
 time allotted for our preparation, and the oppor- 
 tunity of going by that ship was thought too val- 
 uable to be lost No other ladies happened to 
 be going, and so I was consigned to the care of 
 the captain and his crew — rough and unaccus- 
 tomed attendants for a young creature, delicately 
 
 39 
 
40 THE SEA VOYAGE 
 
 brought up as I had been; but, indeed, they did 
 their best to make me not feel the difference. 
 The unpohshed sailors were my nursery-maids 
 and my waiting-women. Everything was done by 
 the captain and the men to acommodate me and 
 make me easy. I had a little room made out of 
 the cabin, which was to be considered as my room, 
 and nobody might enter into it. The first mate 
 made a great character for bravery, and all sailor- 
 like accomplishments; but with all this he had a 
 gentleness of manners, and a pale, feminine cast 
 of face, from ill-health and a weakly constitution, 
 which subjected him to some ridicule from th^ 
 officcKS, and caused him to be named Betsy. He 
 did not much like the appellation, but he submit- 
 ted to it the better, saying that those who gave 
 him a woman's name well knew that he had a 
 man's heart, and that in the face of danger he 
 would go as far as any man. To this young man, 
 whose real name was Charles Atkinson, by a 
 lucky thought of the captain the care of me was 
 especially entrusted. Betsy was proud of his 
 charge, and, to do him justice, acquitted himself 
 with great diligence and adroitness through the 
 whole of the voyage. From the beginning I had 
 somehow looked upon Betsy as a woman, hear- 
 ing him so spoken of, and this reconciled me in 
 some measure to the want of a maid, which I had 
 been used to. But I was a manageable girl at 
 all times, and gave nobody much trouble. 
 
 I have not knowledge enough to give an ac^ 
 
THE SEA VOYAGE 41 
 
 count of my voyage, or to remember the names 
 of the seas we passed through or the lands which 
 we touched upon in our course. The chief thing 
 I can remember (for I do not recollect the events 
 of the voyage in any order) was Atkinson taking 
 me upon deck to see the great whales playing 
 about the sea. There was one great whale came 
 bounding up out of the sea, and then he would 
 dive into it again, and then he would come up at 
 a distance where nobody expected him, and an- 
 other whale was following after him. Atkinson 
 said they were at play, and that the lesser whale 
 loved that bigger whale, and kept it company all 
 through the wide seas; but I thought it strange 
 play and a frightful kind of love, for I every 
 minute expected they would come up to our ship 
 and toss it. But Atkinson said a whale was a 
 gentle creature, and it was a sort of sea-elephant, 
 and that the most powerful creatures in Nature 
 are always the least hurtful. And he told me 
 how men went out to take these whales, and stuck 
 long pointed darts into them; and how the sea was 
 discoloured with the blood of these poor whales 
 for many miles* distance; and I admired the cour- 
 age of the men, but I was sorry for the inoffen- 
 sive whale. Many other pretty sights he used to 
 show me, when he was not on watch or doing some 
 duty for the ship. No one was more attentive 
 to his duty than he, but at such times as he had 
 leisure he would show me all pretty sea-sights: 
 the dolphins and porpoises that came before a 
 
42 THE SEA VOYAGE 
 
 storr^, and all the colours which the sea changed 
 to — how sometimes it was a deep blue, and then a 
 deep green, and sometimes it would seem all on 
 jSre. All these various appearances he would 
 show me, and attempt to explain the reason of 
 them to me, as well as my young capacity would 
 admit of. There were a lion and a tiger on board 
 going to England as a present to the King, and 
 it was a great diversion to Atkinson and me, after 
 I had got rid of my first terrors, to see the ways 
 of these beasts in their dens, and how venturous 
 the sailors were in putting their hands through the 
 grates, and patting their rough coats. Some of 
 the men had monkeys, which ran loose about, and 
 the sport was for the men to lose them, and find 
 them again. The monkeys would run up the 
 shrouds and pass from rope to rope, with ten 
 times greater alacrity than the most experienced 
 sailor could follow them, and sometimes they 
 would hide themselves in the most unthought-of 
 places, and when they were found, they would 
 grin and make mouths, as if they had sense. At- 
 kinson described to me the ways of these little 
 animals in their native woods, for he had seen 
 them. Oh, how many ways he thought of to 
 amuse me in that long voyage! 
 
 Sometimes he would describe to me the odd 
 shapes and varieties of fishes that were in the sea, 
 and tell me tales of the sea-monsters that lay hid 
 at the bottom, and were seldom seen by men, and 
 what a glorious sight it would be if our eyes could 
 
THE SEA VOYAGE 43 
 
 be sharpened to behold all the inhabitants of the 
 sea at once, swimming in the great deeps, as plain 
 as we see the gold and silver fish in a bowl of glass. 
 With such notions he enlarged my infant capacity 
 to take in many things. 
 
 When in foul weather I have been terrified at 
 the motion of the vessel, as it rocked backwards 
 and forwards, he would still my fears, and tell me 
 that I used to be rocked so once in a cradle, and 
 that the sea was God's bed and the ship our cradle, 
 and we were as safe in that great motion as when 
 we felt that lesser one in our little wooden sleep- 
 ing-places. When the wind was up, and sang 
 through the sails, and disturbed me with its vio- 
 lent clamours, he would call it music, and bid me 
 hark to the sea-organ, and with that name he 
 quieted my tender apprehensions. When I have 
 looked around with a mournful face at seeing all 
 men about me, he would enter into my thoughts, 
 and tell me pretty stories of his mother and his 
 sisters, and a female cousin that he loved better 
 than his sisters, whom he called Jenny, and say 
 that when we got to England I should go and 
 see them, and how fond Jenny would be of his 
 little daughter, as he called me; and with these 
 images of women and females which he raised in 
 my fancy he quieted me for a while. One time, 
 and never but once he told me that Jenny had 
 promised to be his wife if ever he came to Eng- 
 land, but that he had his doubts whether he should 
 
44 THE SEA VOYAGE 
 
 live to get home, for he was very sickly. This 
 made me cry bitterly. 
 
 That I dwell so long upon the attention of this 
 Atkinson is only because his death, which hap- 
 pened just before we got to England, affected me 
 so mudh, that he alone of all the ship's crew has 
 engrossed my mind ever since, though, indeed, 
 the captain and all were singularly kind to me, 
 and strove to make up for my uneasy and unnat- 
 ural situation. The boatswain would pipe for my 
 diversion, and the sailor-boy would climb the dan- 
 gerous mast for my sport. The rough foremast- 
 man would never willingly appear before me till 
 he had combed his long black hair smooth and 
 sleek, not to terrify me. The officers got up a 
 sort of play for my amusement, and Atkinson, 
 or, as they called him, Betsy, acted the heroine 
 of the piece. All ways that could be contrived 
 were thought upon to reconcile me to my lot. I 
 was the imiversal favourite. I do not know how 
 deservedly, but I suppose it was because I was 
 alone, and there was no female in the ship besides 
 me. Had I come over with female relations or at- 
 tendants, I should have excited no particular curi- 
 osity, I should have required no uncommon 
 attentions I was one little woman among a crew 
 of men, and I believe the homage which I have 
 read that men universally pay to women was in 
 this case directed to me, in the absence of all other 
 womankind. I do not know how that might be, 
 
THE SEA VOYAGE 45 
 
 but I was a little princess among them, and I was 
 not six years old, 
 
 I remember the first drawback which happened 
 to my comfort was Atkinson's not appearing the 
 whole of one day. The captain tried to reconcile 
 me to it by saying that Mr. Atkinson was con- 
 fined to his cabin, that he was not quite well, but 
 a day or two would restore him. I begged to be 
 taken in to see him, but this was not granted. A 
 day, and then another came, and another, and no 
 Atkinson was visible, and I saw apparent solici- 
 tude in the faces of all the officers, who neverthe- 
 less strove to put on their best countenances be- 
 fore me, and to be more than usually kind to me. 
 At length, by the desire of Atkinson himself, as 
 I have since learned, I was permitted to go into 
 his cabin and see him. He was sitting up, ap- 
 parently in a state of great exhaustion; but his 
 face lighted up when he saw me, and he kissed 
 me, and told me that he was going a great voy- 
 age, far longer than that which we had passed 
 together, and he should never come back; and 
 though I was so young, I understood well enough 
 that he meant this of his death, and I cried sadly; 
 but he comforted me, and told me that I must be 
 his little executrix, and perform his last will, and 
 bear his last words to his mother and his sisters, 
 and to his cousin Jenny, whom I should see in a 
 short time, and he gave me his blessing, as a father 
 would bless bis child, and he sent a last kiss by 
 me to all his female relations, and he made me 
 
46 THE SEA VOYAGE 
 
 promise that I would go and see them when I 
 got to England, and soon after this he died. But 
 I was in another part of the ship when he died, 
 and I was not told it till we got to shore, which 
 was a few days after. But they kept telling me 
 that he was better and better, and that I should 
 soon see him, but that it disturbed him to talk with 
 anyone. Oh, what a grief it was when I learned 
 that I had lost an old shipmate, that had made an 
 irksome situation so bearable by his kind assidu- 
 ities, and to think that he was gone, and I could 
 never repay him for his kindness! 
 
 When I had been a year and a half in England, 
 the captain, who had made another voyage to In- 
 dia and back, thinking that time alleviated a little 
 the sorrow of Atkinson's relations, prevailed upon 
 my friends who had the care of me in England 
 to let him introduce me to Atkinson's mother and 
 sisters. Jenny was no more ; she had died in the 
 interval, and I never saw her. Grief for his 
 death had brought on a consumption, of which she 
 lingered about a twelvemonth, and then expired. 
 But in the mother and the sisters of this excellent 
 young man I have found the most valuable 
 friends I possess on tbi<5 side the great ocean. 
 They received me from the captain as the little 
 protege of Atkinson, and from them I have 
 learned passages of his former life, and this in 
 particular — that the illness of which he died was 
 brought on by a wound of which he never quite 
 recovered which he got in the desperate attempt. 
 
THE SEA VOYAGE 47 
 
 when he was quite a boy, to defend his captain 
 against a superior force of the enemy which had 
 boarded him, and which, by his premature valour, 
 inspiriting the men, they finally succeeded in re- 
 pulsing. This was that Atkinson who, from his 
 pale and feminine appearance, was called Betsy. 
 This was he whose womanly care of me got him 
 the name of a woman, who, with more than fe- 
 male attention, condescended to play the hand- 
 maid to a little unaccompanied orphan that for- 
 tune had cast upon the care of a rough sea-captain 
 and his rougher crew. 
 
 .^ 
 
*Many sheets were scrawled over in vain, 
 nothing else.*' 
 
 I could think of 
 
THE CHANGELING. 
 
 MARY LAMB. 
 
 MY name, you know, is Withers; but as I 
 once thought I was the daughter of Sir 
 Edward and Lady Harriet Lesley, I shall speak 
 of myself as Miss Lesley, and call Sir Edward 
 and Lady Harriet my father and mother during 
 the period I supposed them entitled to those be- 
 loved names. When I was a little girl, it was the 
 perpetual subject of my contemplation that I was 
 an heiress, and the daughter of a baronet; that my 
 mother was the Honourable Lady Harriet; that 
 we had a nobler mansion, infinitely finer pleasure- 
 grounds, and equipages more splendid than any 
 of the neighbouring families. I am ashamed to 
 confess what a proud child I once was. How it 
 happened I cannot tell, for my father was es- 
 teemed the best-bred man in the country, and the 
 condescension and affability of my mother were 
 universally spoken of. 
 
 Alas! I am a changeling, substituted by my 
 mother for the heiress of the Lesley family. It 
 was for my sake she did this naughty deed ; yet, 
 since the truth has been known, it seems to me 
 as if I had been the only sufferer by it ; remember- 
 ing no time when I was not Harriet Lesley, it 
 
 49 
 
50 THE CHANGELING 
 
 seems as if the change had taken from me my 
 birthright. 
 
 Lady Harriet had intended to nurse her child 
 herself, but being seized with a violent fever soon 
 after its birth, she was not only unable to nurse it 
 but even to see it, for several weeks. I was not 
 quite a month old at this time when my mother 
 was hired to be Miss Lesley's nurse. She had 
 once been a servant in the family; her husband 
 was then at sea. 
 
 She had been nursing Miss Lesley a few days, 
 when a girl who had the care of me brought me 
 into the nursery to see my mother. It happened 
 that she wanted something from her own home, 
 which she despatched the girl to fetch, and desired 
 her to leave me till her return. In her absence 
 she changed our clothes; then, keeping me to 
 personate the child she was nursing, she sent away 
 the daughter of Sir Edward to be brought up in 
 her own poor cottage. 
 
 When my mother sent away the girl, she af- 
 firmed she had not the least intention of commit- 
 ting this bad action ; but after she was left alone 
 with us, she looked on me, and then on the little 
 lady baby, and she wept over me, to think she was 
 obliged to leave me to the charge of a careless 
 girl, debarred from my own natural food, while 
 she was nursing another person's child. 
 
 The laced cap and the fine cambric robe of the 
 little Harriet were lying on the table ready to be 
 put on. In these she dressed me, only just to see 
 
THE CHANGELING 51 
 
 how pretty her own dear baby would look in 
 missy's fine clothes. When she saw me thus 
 adorned, she said to me : 
 
 'Oh, my dear Ann, you'iook as like missy as 
 anything can be ! I am sure my lady herself, if 
 she were well enough to see you, would not know 
 the difference !' 
 
 She said these words aloud, and while she was 
 speaking a wicked thought came into her head — 
 how easy it would be to change these children ! 
 On which she hastily dressed Harriet in my coarse 
 raiment. She had no sooner finished the trans- 
 formation of Miss Lesley into the poor Ann 
 Withers than the girl returned, and carried her 
 away, without the least suspicion that it was not 
 the same infant that she had brought thither. 
 
 It was wonderful that no one discovered that I 
 was not the same child. Every fresh face that 
 came into the room filled the nurse with terror. 
 The servants still continued to pay their compli- 
 ments to the baby in the same form as usual, cry- 
 ing: 
 
 TIow like it is to its father!' 
 
 Nor did Sir Edward himself perceive the dif- 
 ference, his lady's illness probably engrossing all 
 his attention at the time, though, indeed, gentle- 
 men seldom take much notice of very young 
 children. 
 
 When Lady Harriet began to recover, and the 
 nurse saw me in her arms caressed as her own 
 child, all fears of detection were over; but the 
 
52 THE CHANGELING 
 
 pangs of remorse then seized her. As the dear 
 sick lady hung with tears of fondness over me, 
 she thought she should have died with sorrow for 
 having so cruelly deceived her. 
 
 When I was a year old, Mrs. Withers was dis- 
 charged, and because she had been observed to 
 nurse me with uncommon care and affection, and 
 was seen to shed many tears at parting from me, 
 to reward her fidelity Sir Edward settled a small 
 pension on her, and she was allowed to come 
 every Sunday to dine in the housekeeper's room, 
 and see her little lady. 
 
 When she went home, it might have been ex- 
 pected she would have neglected the child she had 
 so wickedly stolen, instead of which she nursed it 
 with the greatest tenderness^ being very sorry for 
 what she had done. All the ease she could ever 
 find for her troubled conscience was in her ex- 
 treme care of this injured child, and in the weekly 
 visits to its father's house she constantly brought 
 it with her. At the time I have the earliest rec- 
 ollection of her she was become a widow, and with 
 the pension Sir Edward allowed her, and some 
 plain work she did for our family, she main- 
 tained herself and her supposed daughter. The 
 doting fondness she showed for her child was 
 much talked of. It was said she waited upon it 
 more like a servant than a mother, and it was ob- 
 served its clothes were always made, as far as 
 her slender means would permit, in the same fash- 
 ion, and her hair cut and curled in the sam/^ f orni. 
 
THE CHANGELING 53 
 
 as mine. To this person, as having been my 
 faithful nurse, and to her child, I was always 
 taught to show particular civility, and the 
 little girl was always brought into the nursery to 
 play with me. Ann was a little delicate thing, 
 and remarkably well behaved, for, though so 
 much indulged in every other respect, my mother 
 was very attentive to her manners. 
 
 As the child grew older my mother became very 
 uneasy about her education. She was so very de- 
 sirous of having her well behaved that she feared 
 to send her to school, lest she should learn ill man- 
 ners among the village children, with whom she 
 never suffered her to play, and she was such a 
 poor scholar herself that she could teach her little 
 or nothing. I heard her relate this her distress 
 to my own maid, with tears in her eyes, and I 
 formed a resolution to beg of my parents that I 
 might have Ann for a companion, and that she 
 might be allowed to take lessons with me of my 
 governess. 
 
 My birthday was then approaching, and on 
 that day I was always indulged in the privilege 
 of asking some peculiar favour. 
 
 *And what boon has my annual petitioner to 
 beg to-day?' said my father, as he entered the 
 breakfast-room on the morning of my birthday. 
 
 Then I told him of the great anxiety expressed 
 by Nurse Withers concerning her daughter; how 
 much she wished it was in her power to give her 
 an education that would enable her to get her liv- 
 
54 . THE CHANGELING 
 
 ing without hard labour. I set the good qualities 
 of Ann Withers in the best light I could, and in 
 conclusion I begged she might be permitted to 
 partake with me in education, and become my 
 companion. 
 
 'This is a very serious request indeed, Harriet,' 
 said Sir Edward. *Your mother and I must 
 consult together on the subject.' 
 
 The result of this conversation was favourable 
 to my wishes. In a few weeks my foster-sister 
 was taken into the house, and placed under the 
 tuition of my governess. 
 
 To me, who had hitherto lived without any 
 companions of my own age, except occasional 
 visitors, the idea of a play-fellow constantly to 
 associate with was very pleasant, and, after the 
 first shyness of feeling her altered situation was 
 over, Ann seemed as much at her ease as if she 
 had always been brought up in our house. 1 
 became very fond of her, and took pleasure in 
 showing her all manner of attentions, which so 
 far won on her affections that she told me she 
 had a secret entrusted to her by her mother, which 
 she had promised never to reveal as long as her 
 mother lived, but that she almost wished to can- 
 fide it to me, because I was such a kind friend 
 to her; yet, having promised never to tell it till 
 the death of her mother, she was afraid to tell it 
 to me. At first I assured her that I would never 
 press her to the disclosure, for that promises of 
 secrecy were to be held sacred; but whenever we 
 
THE CHANGELING 55 
 
 fell into any confidential kind of conversation, 
 this secret seemed always ready to come out. 
 Whether she or I were most to blame, I know 
 not, though I own I could not help giving fre- 
 quently hints how well I could keep a secret. At 
 length she told me what I have before related — 
 namely, that she was in truth the daughter of Sir 
 Edward and Lady Lesley, and I the child of her 
 supposed mother. 
 
 When I was first in possession of this wonder- 
 ful secret, my heart burned to reveal it. I 
 thought how praiseworthy it would be in me to 
 restore to my friend the rights of her birth ; yet I 
 thought only of becoming her patroness, and rais- 
 ing her to her proper rank. It never occurred 
 to me that my own degradation must necessarily 
 follow. I endeavoured to persuade her to let me 
 tell this important affair to my parents. This she 
 positively refused. I expressed wonder that she 
 should so faithfully keep this secret for an un- 
 worthy woman, who in her infancy had done her 
 such an injury. 
 
 'Oh,' said she, *you do not know how much she 
 loves me, or you would not wonder that I never 
 resent that. I have seen her grieve and be so very 
 sorry on my account that I would not bring her 
 into more trouble for any good that could happen 
 to myself. She has often told me that, since the 
 day she changed us, she has never known what it 
 is to have a happy moment, and when she re- 
 turned home from nursing you, finding me very 
 
56 THE CHANGELING 
 
 thin and sickly, how her heart smote her for what 
 she had done; and then she nursed and fed me 
 with such anxious care that she grew much fonder 
 of me than if I had been her own, and that on 
 the Sundays when she used to bring me here it was 
 more pleasure to her to see me in my father's 
 own house than it was to her to see you, her real 
 child. The shyness you showed towards her while 
 you were very young, and the forced civility you 
 seemed to affect as you grew older, always ap- 
 peared like ingratitude towards her who had done 
 so much for you. My mother has desired me to 
 disclose this after her death, but I do not believe 
 I shall ever mention it then, for I should be sorry 
 to bring any reproach even on her memory.' 
 
 In a short time after this important discovery, 
 Ann was sent home to pass a few weeks with her 
 mother, on the occasion of the unexpected arrival 
 of some visitors to our house. They were to bring 
 children with them, and these I was to consider as 
 my own guests. 
 
 In the expected arrival of my young visitants, 
 and in making preparations to entertain them, I 
 had little leisure to deliberate on what conduct I 
 should pursue with regard to my friend's secret. 
 Something must be done, I thought, to make her 
 amends for the injury she had sustained, and I 
 resolved to consider the matter attentively on her 
 return. Still my mind ran on conferring fav- 
 ours. I never considered myself as transformed 
 into the dependent person. Indeed, Sir Edward 
 
THE CHANGELING 57 
 
 at this time set me about a task which occupied 
 the whole of my attention. He proposed that I 
 should write a little interlude, after the manner 
 of the French 'Petites Pieces/ and to try my in- 
 genuity, no one was to see it before the represen- 
 tation, except the performers, myself, and my 
 little friends, who, as they were all younger than 
 I, could not be expected to lend me much assist- 
 ance. I have already told you what a proud girl 
 I was. During the writing of this piece, the re- 
 ceiving of my young friends, and the instructing 
 them in their several parts, I never felt myself of 
 so much importance. With Ann my pride had 
 somewhat slumbered. The difference of our 
 rank left no room for competition; all was com- 
 placency and good-humour on my part, and affec- 
 tionate gratitude, tempered with respect, on hers. 
 But here I had full room to show courtesy, to af- 
 fect those graces, to imitate that elegance of man- 
 ners, practised by Lady Harriet to their mothers. 
 I was to be their instructress in action and in at- 
 titudes, and to receive their praises and their ad- 
 miration of my theatrical genius. It was a new 
 scene of triumph for me, and I might then be 
 said to be in the very height of my glory. 
 
 If the plot of my piece, for the invention of 
 which they so highly praised me, had been indeed 
 my own, all would have been well; but unhappily 
 I borrowed from a source which made my drama 
 end far differently from what I intended it 
 should. In the catastrophe I lost not only the 
 
58 THE CHANGELING 
 
 name I personated in the piece, but with it my 
 own name also, and all my rank and consequence 
 in the world fled from me for ever. My father 
 presented me with a beautiful writing-desk for the 
 use of my new authorship. My silver standish 
 was placed upon it ; a quire of gilt paper was be- 
 fore me. I took out a parcel of my best crow 
 quills, and down I sate in the greatest form im- 
 aginable. 
 
 I conjecture I have no talent for invention. 
 Certain it is that, when I sat down to compose 
 my piece, no story would come into my head but 
 the story which Ann had so lately related to me. 
 Many sheets were scrawled over in vain; I could 
 think of nothing else. Still the babies and the 
 nurse were before me in all the minutiae of de- 
 scription Ann had given them. The costly attire 
 of the lady baby, the homely garb of the cottage 
 infant, the affecting address of the fond mother 
 to her own offspring, then the charming equi- 
 voque in the change of the children — it all looked 
 so dramatic. It was a play ready-made to my 
 hands. The invalid mother would form the 
 pathetic, the silly exclamations of the servants the 
 ludicrous, and the nurse was nature itself. It is 
 true I had a few scruples that it might, should it 
 come to the knowledge of Ann, be construed into 
 something very like a breach of confidence. But 
 she was at home, and might never happen to hear 
 of the subject of my piece, and if she did, why, it 
 was only making some handsome apology. To 
 
69 
 
 **Thc girl carried her away without the least suspicion that it was 
 
 not the same infant/' 
 
60 THE CHANGELING 
 
 a dependent companion to whom I had been so 
 very great a friend, it was not necessary to be so 
 very particular about such a trifle. 
 
 Thus I reasoned as I wrote my drama, begin- 
 ning with the title, which I called 'The Change- 
 ling,' and ending with these words: 'The curtain 
 drops, while the lady clasps the baby in her arms, 
 and the nurse sighs audibly/ I invented no new 
 incident ; I simply wrote the story as Ann had told 
 it to me, in the best blank verse I was able to com- 
 pose. 
 
 By the time it was finished the company had 
 an'ived. The casting the different parts was my 
 
 next care. The Honourable Augustus M , a 
 
 young gentleman of five years of age, undertook 
 to play the father. He was only to come in and 
 say: *How does my little darling do to-day?' 
 
 The three Miss s were to be the servants ; they, 
 
 too, had only single lines to speak. 
 
 As these four were all very young performers, 
 we made them rehearse many times over, that they 
 might walk in and out with proper decorum ; but 
 the performance was stopped before their en- 
 trances and their exits arrived. I complimented 
 Lady Elizabeth, the sister of Augustus, who was 
 the eldest of the young ladies, with the choice 
 of the lady mother, or the nurse. She fixed on 
 the former. She was to recline on a sofa, and, 
 affecting ill-health, speak some eight or ten lines, 
 which began with, 'Oh, that I could my precious 
 
 baby see!' To their cousin, Miss Emily ,was 
 
 given the girl who had the care of the nurse's 
 
THE CHANGELING 61 
 
 child. Two dolls were to personate the two chil- 
 dren, and the principal character of the nurse I 
 had the pleasure to perform myself. It consisted 
 of several speeches, and a very long soliloquy 
 during the changing of the children's clothes. 
 
 The elder brother of Augustus, a gentleman 
 of fifteen years of age, refused to mix in our 
 childish drama, yet condescended to paint the 
 scenes, and our dresses were got up by my own 
 maid. 
 
 When we thought ourselves quite perfect in 
 our several parts, we announced it for representa- 
 tion. Sir Edward and Lady Harriet, with their 
 visitors, the parents of my young troop of com- 
 edians, honoured us with their presence. The 
 servants were also permitted to go into a music- 
 gallery, which was at the end of a ball-room we 
 had chosen for our theatre. 
 
 As author and principal performer, standing 
 before a noble audience, my mind was too much 
 engaged with the arduous task I had undertaken 
 to glance my eyes towards the music-gallery, or 
 I might have seen two more spectators there than 
 I expected. Nurse Withers and her daughter 
 Ann were there; they had been invited by the 
 housekeeper to be present at the representation of 
 Miss Lesley's play. 
 
 In the midst of the performance, as I, in char- 
 acter of the nurse, was delivering the wrong child 
 to the girl, there was an exclamation from the 
 music-gallery of: 
 
W THE CHANGELING 
 
 'Oh, it's all true! it's all true!' 
 
 This was followed by a bustle among the ser- 
 vants, and screams as of a. person in an hysteric 
 fit. Sir Edward came forward to inquire what 
 was the matter. He saw it was Mrs. Withers 
 who had fallen into a fit. Ann was weeping over 
 her, and crying out: 
 
 *Oh, Miss Lesley, you have told all in the play T 
 
 Mrs. Withers was brought out into the ball- 
 room. There, with tears and in broken accents, 
 with every sign of terror and remorse, she soon 
 made a full confession of her so long-concealed 
 guilt. 
 
 The strangers assembled to see our childish 
 mimicry of passion were witnesses to a highly- 
 wrought dramatic scene in real life. I intended 
 that they should see the curtain drop without any 
 discovery of the deceit. Unable to invent any 
 new incident, I left the conclusion imperfect as 
 I found it. But they saw a more strict poetical 
 justice done; they saw the rightful child restored 
 to its parents, and the nurse overwhelmed with 
 shame, and threatened with the severest punish- 
 ment. 
 
 *Take this woman,' said Sir Edward, *and lock 
 her up till she be delivered into the hands of jus- 
 tice.' 
 
 Ann, on her knees, implored mercy for her 
 mother. Addressing the children, who were 
 gathered round her, 'Dear ladies,' said she, 'help 
 me — on your knees help me — to beg forgiveness 
 
THE CHANGELING 6^ 
 
 for my mother T Down the young ones all drop- 
 ped; even Lady Elizabeth bent on her knee. 
 *Sir Edward, pity her distress ! Sir Edward par- 
 don her!' 
 
 All joined in the petition except one, whose 
 voice ought to have been loudest in the appeal. 
 No word, no accent came from me. I hung over 
 Lady Harriet's chair, weeping as if my heart 
 would break. But I wept for my own fallen 
 fortunes, not for my mother's sorrow. 
 
 I thought within myself: 'If in the integrity 
 of my heart, refusing to participate in this unjust 
 secret, I had boldly ventured to publish the truth, 
 I might have had some consolation in the praises 
 which so generous an action would have merited ; 
 but it is through the vanity of being supposed to 
 have written a pretty story that I have meanly 
 broken my faith with my friend, and unintention- 
 ally proclaimed the disgrace of my mother and 
 myself.' 
 
 While thoughts like these were passing through 
 my mind, Ann had obtained my mother's pardon. 
 Instead of being sent away to confinement and 
 the horrors of a prison, she was given by Sir Ed- 
 ward into the care of the housekeeper, who had 
 orders from Lady Harriet to see her put to bed 
 and properly attended to, for again this wretched 
 woman had fallen into a fit. 
 
 Ann would have followed my mother, but Sir 
 Edward brought her back, telling her that she 
 should see her when she was better. He then led 
 
64 THE CHANGELING 
 
 her towards Lady Harriet, desiring her to em- 
 brace her child. She did so, and I saw her, as I 
 had phrased it in the play, 'clasped in her mother's 
 arms.' 
 
 This scene had greatly aflfected the spirits of 
 Lady Harriet. Through the whole of it, it was 
 with difficulty she had been kept from fainting, 
 and she was now led into the drawing-room by 
 the ladies. The gentlemen followed, talking 
 with Sir Edward of the astonishing instance of 
 filial affection they had just seen in the earnest 
 pleadings of the child for her supposed mother. 
 
 Ann, too, went with them, and was conducted 
 by her whom I had always considered as my own 
 particular friend. Lady Elizabeth took hold of 
 her hand, and said : 
 
 *Miss Lesley, will you permit me to conduct 
 you to the drawing-room?' 
 
 I was left weeping behind the chair where Lady 
 Harriet had sate, and, as I thought, quite alone. 
 A something had before twitched my frock two 
 or three times, so slightly I had scarcely noticed 
 it. A little head now peeped round, and looking 
 up in my face, said : 
 
 'She is not Miss Lesley!' 
 
 It was the young Augustus. He had been sit- 
 ting at my feet, but I had not observed him. He 
 then started up, and taking hold of my hand with 
 one of his, with the other holding fast by my 
 clothes, he led, or rather dragged, me into the 
 midst of the company assembled in the drawing- 
 
THE CHANGELING 65 
 
 room. The vehemence of his manner, his Uttle 
 face as red as fire, caught every eye. The ladies 
 smiled, and one gentleman laughed in a most un- 
 feeling manner. His elder brother patted him on 
 the head, and said: 
 
 'You are a humane little fellow. Elizabeth, we 
 might have thought of this.' 
 
 Very kind words were now spoken to me by 
 Sir Edward, and he called me Harriet, precious 
 name now grown to me. Lady Harriet kissed 
 me, and said she would never forget how long 
 she had loved me as her child. These were com- 
 fortable words, but I heard echoed round the 
 room : 
 
 'Poor thing! she cannot help it! I am sure she 
 is to be pitied! Dear Lady Harriet, how kind, 
 how considerate you are!' 
 
 Ah! what a deep sense of my altered condition 
 did I then feel! 
 
 'Let the young ladies divert themselves in an- 
 other room,' said Sir Edward; 'and Harriet, take 
 your new sister with you, and help her to entertain 
 your friends.' 
 
 Yes, he called me Harriet again, and after- 
 wards invented new names for his daughter and 
 me, and always called us by them, apparently in 
 jest; yet I knew it was only because he would not 
 hurt me with hearing our names reversed. When 
 Sir Edward desired us to show the children into 
 another room, Ann and I walked towards the 
 door. A new sense of humiliation arose. How 
 
66 THE CHANGELING 
 
 could I go out at the door before Miss Lesley? I 
 stood irresolute. She drew back. The elder 
 brother of my friend Augustus assisted me in this 
 perplexity. Pushing us all forward, as if in a 
 playful mood, he drove us indiscriminately before 
 him, saying: 
 
 *I will make one among you to-day.' 
 
 He had never joined in our sports before. 
 
 My luckless play, that sad instance of my du- 
 plicity, was never once mentioned to me after- 
 wards, not even by any one of the children who 
 had acted in it, and I must also tell you how con- 
 siderate an old lady was at the time about our 
 dresses. As soon as she perceived things grow- 
 ing very serious, she hastily stripped off the up- 
 per garments we wore to represent our different 
 characters. I think I should have died with 
 shame if the child had led me into the drawing- 
 room in the mummery I had worn to represent 
 a nurse. This good lady was of another essential 
 service to me, for, perceiving an irresolution in 
 everyone how they should behave to us, which dis- 
 tressed me very much, she contrived to place Miss 
 Lesley above me at table, and called her Miss Les- 
 ley, and me Miss Withers, saying at the same time 
 in a low voice, but as if she meant I should hear 
 her. 
 
 'It is better these things should be done at once, 
 then they are over.' 
 
 My heart thanked her, for I felt the truth of 
 what she said. 
 
THE CHANGELING 67 
 
 My poor mother continued very ill for many 
 weeks. No medicine could remove the extreme 
 dejection of spirits she laboured under. Sir Ed- 
 ward sent for Dr. Wheelding, the clergyman of 
 the parish, to give her religious consolation. Ev- 
 ery day he came to visit her, and he would always 
 take Miss Lesley and me into the room with him. 
 
 My heart was softened by my own misfortunes, 
 and the sight of my penitent, suffering mother. 
 I felt that she was now my only parent. I strove, 
 earnestly strove, to love her; yet ever when I 
 looked in her face, she would seem to me to be 
 the very indentical person whom I should have 
 once thought sufficiently honoured by a slight in- 
 clination of the head, and a civil, 'How do you 
 do, Mrs Withers?' One day, as Miss Lesley was 
 hanging over her with her accustomed fondness, 
 Dr. Wheelding reading in a Prayer-Book, and, as 
 I thought, not at that moment regarding us, I 
 threw myself on my knees, and silently prayed 
 that I, too, might be able to love my mother. 
 
 Dr. Wheelding had been observing me. He 
 took me into the garden, and drew from me the 
 subject of my petition. 
 
 'Your prayers, my good young lady,' said he, 
 *I hope, are heard. Sure I am they have caused 
 me to adopt a resolution which, as it will enable 
 you to see your mother frequently, will, I hope, 
 greatly assist your pious wishes. I will take your 
 mother home with me to superintend my family. 
 Under my roof doubtless Sir Edward will often 
 
68 THE CHANGELING 
 
 permit you to see her. Perform your duty to- 
 wards her as well as you possibly can. Affection 
 is the growth of time. With such good wishes 
 in your young heart, do not despair that in due 
 time it will assuredly spring up.' 
 
 ^ith the approbation of Sir Edward and Lady 
 Harriet, my mother was removed in a few days 
 to Dr. Wheelding's house. There she soon recov- 
 ered! there she at present resides. She tells me 
 she loves me almost as well as she did when I was 
 a baby, and we both wept at parting when I went 
 to school. 
 
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL. 
 
 A'NON. 
 
 DR. HAMMOND was a physician in great 
 practice in the West of England. He re- 
 sided in a small market-town, and his family con- 
 sisted of one son named Charles, and two daugh- 
 ters, Louisa and Sophy. 
 
 Sophy possessed many amiable qualities, and 
 did not want for sense, but every better feeling 
 was lost in her extreme inquisitiveness. Her fac- 
 ulties were all occupied in peeping and prying 
 about, and, provided she could gratify her own 
 curiosity, she never cared how much vexation she 
 caused to others. 
 
 This propensity began when she was so very 
 young that it had become a habit before her par- 
 ents perceived it. She was a very little creature 
 when she was once nearly squeezed to death be- 
 tween two double doors as she was peeping 
 through the keyhole of one of them to see who 
 was in the drawing-room; and another time she 
 was locked up for several hours in a closet in 
 which she had hid herself for the purpose of 
 overhearing what her mother was saying to one of 
 the servants. 
 
 When Sophy was eleven and her sister about 
 
 69 
 
70 THE Inquisitive girl 
 
 sixteen years old their mother died. Louisa was 
 placed at the head of her father's house, and the 
 superintendence of Sophy's education necessarily 
 devolved on her. The care of such a family was a 
 great charge for a young person of Miss Ham- 
 mond's age, and more especially as her father was 
 obliged to be so much from home that she could 
 not always have his counsel and advice even when 
 she most needed it. By this means she fell into 
 an injudicious mode of treating her sister. 
 
 If Louisa received a note she carefully locked 
 it up, and never spoke of its contents before 
 Sophy. If a message was brought to her she al- 
 ways went out of the room to receive it, and never 
 suffered the servant to speak in her sister's hear- 
 ing. When any visitors came Louisa commonly 
 sent Sophy out of the room, or if they were inti- 
 mate friends she would converse with them in 
 whispers; in short, it was her chief study that 
 everything which passed in the family should be a 
 secret from Sophy. Alas ! this procedure, instead 
 of repressing Sophy's curiosity, only made it the 
 more keen ; her eyes and ears were always on the 
 alert, and what she could not see, hear, or thor- 
 oughly comprehend she made out by guesses. 
 
 The worst consequence of Louisa's conduct 
 was that as Sophy had no friend and companion 
 in her sister, who treated her with such constant 
 suspicion and reserve, she necessarily was induced 
 to find a friend and companion amongst the ser- 
 vants, and she selected the housemaid Sally, a 
 
71 
 
 
 
 If Louisa received a note she carefully locked it up* 
 
72 THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 
 
 good-natured, well-intentioned girl, but silly and 
 ignorant and inquisitive like herself, and it may 
 be easily supposed how much mischief these two 
 foolish creatures occasioned, not only in the fam- 
 ily, but also amongst their neighbours. 
 
 It happened soon after that, for an oiFence 
 which was the cause of very great vexation to 
 her brother, and was the occasion of his being for 
 a time deprived of the friendship of Sir Henry 
 and Lady Askham, two of Dr. Hammond's near- 
 est and most intimate neighbours, her father 6r- 
 dered Sophy, as a still further punishment, to be 
 locked up in her own room till the Sunday follow- 
 ing. This was on Friday, and Sophy had two 
 days of solitude and imprisonment before her. 
 The first day she passed very dismally, but yet 
 not unprofitably, for she felt truly ashamed and 
 sorry for her fault, and made many good resolu- 
 tions of endeavouring to cure herself of her mis- 
 chievous propensity. The second day she began 
 to be somewhat more composed, and by degrees 
 she was able to amuse herself with watching the 
 people in the street, which was overlooked by the 
 windows of her apartment, and she began, almost 
 unconsciously to herself, to indulge in her old 
 habit of trying to find out what everybody was 
 doing, and in guessing where they were going. 
 
 She had not long been engaged in watching her 
 neighbours before her curiosity was excited by the 
 appearance of a servant on horseback, who rode 
 up to the door, and, after giving a little three-cor- 
 
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 73 
 
 nered note to Dr. Hammond's footman, rode off. 
 The servant she knew to be Mrs. Arden's, an in- 
 timate friend of her father, and the note she con- 
 jectured was an invitation to dinner, and the 
 guessing what day the invitation was for, and 
 who were to be the company, and whether she was 
 included in the invitation, was occupying her busy 
 fancy, when she saw her sister going out of the 
 house with the three-cornered note in her hand, 
 and cross the street to Mr. McNeal's stocking 
 shop, which was opposite. Almost immediately 
 afterwards Mr. McNeal's shopman came out of 
 the shop, and, running down the street, was pres- 
 ently out of sight, but soon returned with Mr. 
 McNeal himself. She saw Louisa reading the 
 note to Mr. McNeal, and in a few minutes after- 
 wards returned home. Here was matter of won- 
 der and conjecture. Sophy forgot all her good 
 resolutions, and absolutely wearied herself with 
 her useless curiosity. 
 
 At length the term of her imprisonment was 
 over, and Sophy was restored to the society of her 
 family. At first she kept a tolerable guard over 
 herself. Once she saw her father and sister whis- 
 pering, and did not, though she longed much to 
 do it, hold her breath that she might hear what 
 they were saying. Another time she passed 
 Charles's door when it was ajar and the little 
 study open, and she had so much self-command 
 that she passed by without peeping in, and she be- 
 gan to think she was cured of her faults. But in 
 
74 
 
 She read it with trembling impatience. 
 
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 75 
 
 reality this was far from being the case, and 
 whenever she recollected Mrs. Arden's mysterious 
 note she felt her inquisitive propensities as strong 
 as ever. Her eyes and ears were always on the 
 alert, in hopes of obtaining some clue to the 
 knowledge she coveted, and if Mrs. Arden's or 
 Mr. McNeal's names were mentioned she listened 
 with trembling anxiety in the hope of hearing 
 some allusion to the note. 
 
 At last, when she had almost given up the mat- 
 ter in despair, an unlooked-for chance put her in 
 possession of a fragment of this very note to 
 which she attached so much importance. 
 
 One day Louisa wanted to wind a skein of silk, 
 and in looking for a piece of paper to wind it up- 
 on she opened her writing-box, and took out Mrs. 
 Arden's note. ' Sophy knew it again in an instant 
 from its three-cornered shape. She saw her sister 
 tear the note in two, throw one-half under the 
 grate, and fold the other part up to wind her silk 
 upon. Sophy kept her eye on the paper that lay 
 under the grate in the greatest anxiety, lest a coal 
 should drop upon it and destroy it, when it seemed 
 almost within her grasp. Louisa was called out of 
 the room, and Sophy, overpowered by the great- 
 ness of the temptation, forgot all the good reso- 
 lutions she had so lately made, and at the risk of 
 setting fire to her sleeve, snatched the paper from 
 amongst the ashes, and concealed it in her pocket. 
 She then flew to her own room to examine it at 
 her case. The note had been torn lengthway 
 
76 THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 
 
 of the paper, and that part of it of which Sophy 
 had possessed herself contained the first half of 
 each line of the note. Bolting her door for fear 
 of interruption, she read, with trembling impa- 
 tience, as follows: 
 
 'Will you 
 be kind enought to go to 
 Mr. McNeal, and tell him 
 he has made a great mistake 
 the last stockings he sent ; 
 charging them as silk) he has cheated 
 of several pounds. — I am sorry to say 
 that he has behaved very ill 
 And Mr. Arden tells me that 
 it must end in his being hanged 
 I am exceedingly grieved 
 but fear this will be the end.' 
 
 When Sophy had read these broken sentences 
 she fancied that she fully comprehended the pur- 
 port of the whole note, and she now saw the rea- 
 son of her sister's hastening to Mr. McNeal's im- 
 mediately on the receipt of the note, and of the 
 hurry in which he had been summoned back to his 
 shop. It appeared very clear to her that he had 
 defrauded Mrs. Arden of a considerable sum of 
 money, and that he was no longer that honest 
 tradesman he had been supposed. The weight of 
 this important discovery quite overburdened her, 
 and, forgetful of her past punishment, and re- 
 
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 77 
 
 gardless of future consequences, she imparted the 
 surprising secret to Sally. Sally was not one 
 who could keep such a piece of news to herself; 
 it was therefore soon circulated through half the 
 town that Mr. McNeal had defrauded Mrs. Ar- 
 den, and that Mr. Arden declared he would have 
 him hanged for it. Several persons in conse- 
 quence avoided Mr. McNeaFs shop, who saw his 
 customers forsaking him without being able to 
 know why they did so. Thus the conduct of this 
 inconsiderate girl took away the good name of an 
 honest tradesman, on no better foundation than 
 her own idle conjectures drawn from the torn 
 fragments of a letter. 
 
 Mr. McNeal at length became informed of the 
 injurious report that was circulated about him. 
 He immediately went to Mrs. Arden to tell her of 
 the report, and to ask her if any inadvertency of 
 his own in regard to her dealings at his shop had 
 occasioned her speaking so disadvantageously of 
 him. Mrs. Arden was much astonished at what 
 he told her, as she might well be, and assured 
 him that she had never either spoken of him nor 
 thought of him but as thoroughly an honourable 
 and honest tradesman. Mrs. Arden was exceed- 
 ingly hurt that her name should be attached to 
 such a cruel calumny, and, on consulting with 
 Sir Henry Askham, it was agreed that he and 
 Mrs. Arden should make it their business to trace 
 it back to its authors. They found no great diffi- 
 culty in tracing it back to Sally, Dr. Hammond's 
 
 ">, A 
 
78 THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 
 
 servant. She was accordingly sent for to Mr. 
 McNeaFs, where Sir Henry Askham and Mr. 
 Arden, with some other gentlemen, were as- 
 sembled on this charitable investigation. Sally, 
 on being questioned who had told her of the re- 
 port replied, without hesitation, that she had been 
 told by Miss Sophy, who had seen all the partic- 
 ulars in Mrs. Arden's handwriting. 
 
 Mr. Arden was greatly astonished at hearing 
 this assertion, and felt confident that the whole 
 must have originated from some strange blunder. 
 He and the other gentlemen immediately pro- 
 ceeded to Dr. Hammond's, and having explained 
 their business to him, desired to see Sophy. She, 
 on being asked, confirmed what Sally had said, 
 adding that to satisfy them she could show them 
 Mrs. Arden's own words, and she accordingly 
 produced the fragment of the note. Miss Ham- 
 mond, the instant she saw the paper recollected 
 it again, and winding off the silk from the other 
 half of Mrs. Arden's note, presented it to Mr. 
 Arden, who, laying the two pieces of paper to- 
 gether, read as follows : 
 
 *My Dear Miss Hammond^ — Will you as soon 
 as you receive this be kind enough to go to your 
 opposite neighbour, ]Mr. McNeal, and tell him I 
 find by looking at his bill he has made a great mis- 
 take as to the price of the last stockings he sent; 
 and it seems to me (by not charging them as silk) 
 he has cheated himself, as he'll see, of several 
 pounds. — I am sorry to say of our new dog, that 
 
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL 79 
 
 he has behaved very ill and worried two sheep, 
 and Mr. Arden tells me that he very much fears 
 it must end in his being hanged or he'll kill all 
 the flock. I am exceedingly grieved, for he is a 
 noble animal, but fear this will be the end of my 
 poor dog. 'I am, dear Louisa, yours truly, ^^^ 
 
 'Mary Arden .^ 
 Thus by the fortunate preservation of the last 
 half of the note the whole affair was cleared up, 
 Mrs. Arden's character vindicated from the 
 charge of being a def amer, and Mr. McNeal 
 from all suspicion of dishonesty. And all their 
 friends were pleased and satisfied. But how did 
 Sophy feel? She did feel at last both remorse 
 and humiliation. She had no one to blame but 
 herself; she had no one to take her part, for even 
 her father and her brother considered it due to 
 public justice that she should make a public ac- 
 knowledgment of her fault to Mr. McNeal, and 
 to ask his pardon. 
 
80 
 
 Agnes felt ashamed, and hastened on, for her purse was empty. 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG. 
 
 ALICIA CATHERINE MAUT. 
 
 4 1 THINK,' said Agnes Clavering, a child of 
 A about eight years of age — 'I think I should 
 like to give that pretty blue bag I admired so 
 much the other day at the Bazaar to my cousin 
 Laura. She likes blue, and I know she wishes 
 for a new bag/ 
 
 'You will do very well, Agnes, in thus spend- 
 ing a part of your allowance of pocket-money,* 
 replied Mrs. Clavering. 'Laura is one of the 
 kindest little girls I know, and, being one of a 
 large family, cannot have so many indulgences as 
 yourself; and I am always glad when I see you 
 bear this in mind.' 
 
 'I shall give it her on New Year's Day,' con- 
 tinued Agnes, after a few minutes of thoughtful- 
 ness, 'for it was on that day of this year that she 
 gave me that pretty purse of her own making; 
 and I shall buy a gold thimble to put in it, and a 
 pretty little pair of scissors with a gold sheath, 
 and a tortoiseshell box for needles, and some ivory 
 winders for cotton.' 
 
 'All these together,' replied Mrs. Clavering, 
 'will make a very handsome present, and I am 
 sure that Laura will be much pleased with it. 
 
 81 
 
82 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 But do you know how long it is to New Year's 
 Day?' 
 
 'No, mother; I do not,' replied Agnes. 
 
 'Nearly six weeks,' said Mrs. Clavering; 'but 
 you may make your purchases the first time we 
 walk through the Bazaar, and then you will have 
 them ready against the time you require them.' 
 
 Nothing more passed at that time on the sub- 
 ject of the blue bag, and that and several follow- 
 ing days being wet, there was no opportunity of 
 visiting the Bazaar. During this time Mrs. 
 Clavering and Agnes went to dine with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Parker, and when Agnes, on going to play 
 with her cousins after dinner, saw Laura's shabby 
 workbasket, and heard her complain of having 
 broken her needle and hurt her finger by a hole in 
 her thimble, Agnes felt very glad that she had 
 happened to recollect what Laura wanted, She 
 could hardly help telling her what was in prepa- 
 ration for her. More than once it was on the very 
 tip of her tongue, and the secret certainly would 
 have been revealed had not little Augusta Parker 
 suddenly fallen against a table, which stood in the 
 corner of the play-room and thrown its contents 
 on the floor. 
 
 'Oh, Augusta!' said Laura, in a tone of vex- 
 ation; but she checked herself, and helping the 
 little girl to rise, kindly asked her if she had hurt 
 herself. 
 
 The child, however, was unhurt, and knowing 
 that Laura would be vexed at the upset she had 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 83 
 
 occasioned, she crept to the other end of the room, 
 and began playing with her Httle brothers. 
 
 'Oh, what beautiful shells!' said Agnes. 
 'Where did you get them, and why did you not 
 show them to me, Laura? I am so fond of 
 shells !' For it was a box of shells which the little 
 Augusta had thrown off the table. 
 
 'I did not mean you to see them yet,' replied 
 Laura — 'not till the box was full ; but it does not 
 signify now,' added the placid little girl ; and the 
 two children sat down together to examine this 
 little mine of treasures. 
 
 Agnes was not at all envious of Laura's box of 
 shells, but Agnes would very much have liked 
 to have had a box wdth shells placed in them ex- 
 actly as Laura's were. It was one of her failings 
 to wish to have the same toy or the same trinket 
 which she saw in the possession of other little 
 girls. It was not her desire to deprive them of 
 theirs, but she wished to possess something ex- 
 actly similar, and it had been her misfortune from 
 the moment of her being able to form any wishes 
 to have them immediately gratified. The conse- 
 quence was that she was whimsical and capricious. 
 The favourite wax doll of to-day would be dis- 
 carded on the morrow for one of Vood if she saw 
 one of that sort in the hands of another. Her 
 playthings never pleased her more than two or 
 three days, and at the end of this time a string of 
 new desires arose, which she knew would be im- 
 mediately met, and which consequently led the 
 
84 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 way to others. She had only to ask and have, 
 and this facility gradually produced a sort of sel- 
 fishness which her mother was vexed at perceiving. 
 Agnes was kind-hearted, and always wilhng that 
 others should be gratified, but not at her expense ; 
 and Mrs. Clavering saw that, while any little pres- 
 ent the child made to her friends, or charity be- 
 stowed on some poor object, occasioned no de- 
 privation to herself, the motives for both could 
 not be pure. 
 
 When she had reached her eighth year, there- 
 fore, early as it might seem, Mrs. Clavering had 
 set aside a purse for the use of her little girl, which 
 she told her was all that would be expended for 
 her amusements during the year, and she was anx- 
 ious to see how far this arrangement might be a 
 check on the boundless wishes of the little Agnes. 
 Hitherto Agnes had gone on very well. Her 
 father's presents, in spite of her mother's remon- 
 strances, had kept the purse nearly full, and at 
 the latter end of January it would be again re- 
 plenished. But her father was now from home. 
 It might so happen that he would be absent till 
 that time, and Agnes knew that she must now use 
 her means with caution. 
 
 As she was returning with her mother home in 
 the carriafire from her uncle's, Agnes said : 
 
 *I should so very much like a box of shells.' 
 
 *And have you not as much pleasure in looking 
 at Laura's?' replied Mrs. Clavering. 'And do 
 you not think she has some pleasure in showing 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 85 
 
 you what you have not of your own? It is very 
 seldom indeed that she can have this pleasure, for 
 you have everything, and a great deal more than 
 she has. It so happens in this case that her 
 father's brother has given her what I think it 
 would be hardly in the power of your father to 
 buy, for he brought them from abroad. And I 
 hope you will be satisfied to see them when you 
 are with your cousin, and be very careful of ex- 
 pressing any wish for them before her. For you 
 know that she has more than once offered you such 
 little trifles as you have wished for when you have 
 seen them in her possession.' 
 
 *0h, mother,' said Agnes, with eagerness, 'I 
 do not want Laura's shells, indeed! I only 
 wanted some like them. But I will try and not 
 think of the shells.' 
 
 *You should not do this, Agnes,' said Mrs. 
 Clavering; 'you should try and think of them 
 without wishing for them. But here we are at 
 home.' 
 
 A few days after this a lady called on Mrs. 
 Clavering to invite her to go with her to look at 
 some old china, and Agnes received permission to 
 be of the party. While the two ladies were oc- 
 cupied with the master of the shop in looking 
 through his assortment of china, the master's wife 
 very good-naturedly busied herself with Agnes, 
 and endeavoured to amuse her by showing her 
 many curiosities contained on her numerous 
 shelves. Amongst the rest she exhibited some 
 
86 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 drawers of shells, some of which were so like those 
 which Agnes had seen in Laura's box that she 
 began to long for them, and as the prices were 
 marked, and they did not appear very expensive, 
 she whispered to her mother and asked if she 
 might purchase them. 
 
 *Can you afford it?' whispered Mrs. Clavering 
 in reply, and stroking at the same time the bloom- 
 ing cheek that rested against hers. 
 
 *I think I can, mother,' again whispered Agnes, 
 in a very coaxing manner. 
 
 'If you are sure you can,' once more whispered 
 Mrs. Clavering, 'you may ; but remember the blue 
 bag.' 
 
 Agnes returned to the tempting shell-drawer. 
 Mrs. Clavering advanced the money to pay for 
 the new purchases, and on their return home 
 Agnes begged her mother would directly pay 
 herself from her own Durse. 
 
 'And, mother,' continued Agnes, 'I think the 
 thimble shall be of silver instead of gold, for a 
 gold one will cost a great deal of money. And 
 I never use a gold one, and why should I give 
 Laura one?' 
 
 'I see no reason why, certainly,' answered Mrs. 
 Clavering, 'excepting that it was your own propo- 
 sal. I should have thought that a silver one was 
 quite as well, if not better ; but I did not like to 
 check your wish of making a handsome present 
 to your cousin. Let it be silver, if you please; 
 but take care that you keep money enough to pay 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 87 
 
 for that, and the other articles which you design 
 putting into the New Year's present.' 
 
 'Oh, I shall have plenty now, mother,' returned 
 Agnes; *but I think I could not have afforded 
 the gold thimble/ 
 
 And she went to her play-room to look at her 
 shells, put them in order, and see how many were 
 wanting to complete the number which her cousin 
 possessed. 
 
 It now occurred to her that a box to contain 
 them was inidspensable, and the footman's 
 brother being a carpenter, she desired him to get 
 one made for her. It was soon completed, and 
 when it came home, and was paid for, Agnes 
 found that it had cost just the difference between 
 a silver and a gold thimble. She proceeded to 
 place her shells in order, but the box was not half 
 full, and while thus occupied a visitor called, who 
 was accompanied by her young son and a beauti- 
 ful little white dog, and this little white dog and 
 his master called off her attention for a while 
 from her shells. 
 
 The little animal was very amusing and very 
 playful. He could perform a number of little 
 odd tricks, and, amongst others, would patiently 
 wait while his younq* master counted ten, and 
 then would spring forwards and receive the piece 
 of bread or biscuit held out to him. Agnes 
 thought she never could be tired of playing with 
 such a *dear little dog,' to use her own expression, 
 and she expressed her wishes so strongly and so 
 
88 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 earnestly that the httle dog's master, after whis- 
 pering to his mother, told Agnes that if she liked 
 she was very welcome to keep the dog, for that 
 he was going to school, and nobody at home cared 
 for her but himself. Mrs. Clavering felt vexed 
 that Agnes had so warmly expressed her admira- 
 tion of the dog, but she did not see how she could 
 decline her acceptance, and by this arrangement 
 Agnes for the remainder of the day had nothing 
 to wish for, excepting, indeed, it might be that the 
 chapter of the History of England she read to 
 her mother in the evening had not been quite so 
 long, and that bedtime had not come before she 
 had had another game of play with little Chloe. 
 
 In the morning the first thing to be thought 
 of was Chloe, and Chloe occasioned in her mis- 
 tress so many wandering thoughts when she 
 ought to have been occupied with her book that 
 Mrs. Clavering was obliged to threaten the loss 
 of the new favourite before the morning task 
 could be accomplished. At length Chloe was 
 turned out of the room, but then Chloe would run 
 downstairs, and into the hall, and back again up- 
 stairs, and scratch at the drawing-room door for 
 admittance, and when once more admitted, on 
 Agnes's promise to let her lie still quietly under 
 the sofa, Chloe wished to go out of the room 
 again; and out of the room once more, but only 
 once, she was allowed to go. Then, on the hall- 
 door being left open for a minute, Chloe was out 
 in the street, and it was with considerable dfficulty 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 89 
 
 that James, the man-servant, could again catch 
 her. This suggested the necessity of a collar 
 for Chloe, and a collar, indeed, seemed indispen- 
 sable if the dog was to be kept. 
 
 'But I am not sure that I shall have money 
 enough to buy one,' said Agnes, as she begged 
 her mother to examine her purse, and assist her 
 in calculating how much the blue bag and its fur- 
 niture were likely to cost. 
 
 Agnes thought, if father was at home she 
 would have had the collar purchased for her di- 
 rectly, and as Mrs. Clavering had allowed the dog 
 to be accepted, it seemed to her that it would not 
 be an unreasonable indulgence to make Chloe's 
 mistress a present of a collar. She told Agnes, 
 therefore, that she would provide the little animal 
 with a collar, and thinking that the sooner the 
 blue bag was bought the less would be Agnes's 
 temptation to encroach on the money set aside for 
 its purchase, she directed her little girl to get her 
 hat and pelisse put on, and they would proceed 
 immediately to the Bazaar, 
 
 As Mrs. Clavering and Agnes were crossing 
 the hall, a carriage drove to the door. It was 
 Mrs. Montague, a particular friend of Mrs, 
 Clavering, and she had called to invite her and 
 Agnes to take a drive to a bird-fancier's, who 
 had a large collection of canary-birds; for Har- 
 riet and Eliza Montague had been promised by 
 their uncle that they should each have one, and 
 their mother thought that Agnes would like to 
 
90 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 go and help choose them. The Httle girls had a 
 very pleasant ride together, and they all thought 
 the birds very beautiful, and that they sung de- 
 lightfully. But it was rather an unfortunate ex- 
 cursion for Agnes, for on her return home Chloe 
 pleased her no longer, and she told her mother she 
 thought 'a canary-bird would be a much pret- 
 tier pet than a rude, troublesome little dog.' 
 
 *And yet you were very much pleased with 
 your little dog yesterday,' remarked Mrs. Claver- 
 ing, 'and to-day she looks much prettier with her 
 smart collar on, and she frisks and gambols about, 
 and is as anxious as ever to be taken notice of.' 
 
 At this moment Chloe ran up to her little mis- 
 tress, and Agnes could not help acknowledging 
 that her collar was very pretty. She kissed her 
 mother for having so soon obliged her by buying 
 one, and for an hour or two the canary-birds were 
 forgotten. The next day, however, Agnes had 
 been invited to spend with Harriet and Eliza 
 Montague. The birds had been brought home. 
 They looked even more beautiful in the play-room 
 than at the bird-fancier's, and they and their 
 cages together were so very ornamental that Ag- 
 sen thought of them some minutes after she had 
 laid her head on her pillow. In the morning she 
 asked her mother if she might not buy a canary- 
 bird. They were not very expensive, and she 
 should like one so very much.' 
 
 *I v/ish my dear little girl, you could learn to 
 see what others have, and be amused and pleased. 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 91 
 
 without always wishing to possess what has given 
 you amusement and pleasure.' 
 
 'If I can but have a canary-bird,' replied Ag- 
 nes, 'I shall not wish for anything else, and shall 
 be quite satisfied. Do, mother, let me buy one. 
 Father would, I know, if he were at home.' 
 
 'Your father is very indulgent, Agnes,' replied 
 Mrs. Clavering. 'He sees you but seldom, and 
 never likes to refuse you anything you wish for 
 when he does see you; but I should not think you 
 a good girl to impose upon his kindness by ask- 
 ing anything of him which I had thought it bet- 
 ter to refuse you.' 
 
 *I cannot see why I should not have a canary- 
 bird, mother,' said Agnes, not, I am sorry to say, 
 very good-humouredly, 'and I do not wish you 
 to buy it for me. I could buy it myself, for, 
 you know, I have money of my own.' 
 
 'I do not mean to argue with you,' replied Mrs. 
 Clavering, 'for little girls of your age are 
 not always capable of understanding the reason 
 why indulgences are refused them, though they 
 are quite equal to knowing that it is their duty 
 not to repine when they are withheld. However, 
 do as you please about the canary-bird. If you 
 have money sufficient to pay for one, let the bird 
 be bought. The money was given you to spend 
 exactly as you please.' 
 
 Agnes looked at her mother. No, mother did 
 not look pleased — she looked grave; and when 
 Agnes's countenance once more brightened at the 
 
92 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 prospect of possessing the canary-bird, Mrs. 
 Clavering neither smiled nor even looked at 
 Agnes. She continued looking at her work, and 
 her needle went in and out very, very fast. Ag- 
 nes walked up to her mother, and taking her 
 purse from the box where it was always kept, 
 took from it the money, and began to count it. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Clavering said: 
 
 'Well, Agnes, what is this beautiful bird to 
 cost?' 
 
 'Only five shillings,' replied Agnes. 
 
 *And have you five shillings to spare?' said Mrs. 
 Clavering. 
 
 *Oh yes, mother; I think I have,' replied Agnes. 
 *Oh yes, I can do it very well. You know I 
 talked of buying a gold scissor-sheath for Laura, 
 but I think a leather one will do just as well. 
 And then I shall have more than money enough 
 for the canary-bird.' 
 
 'Poor Laura 1' said Mrs. Clavering. 'I am 
 afraid she does not stand a very good chance of 
 having any New Year's gift. However, the 
 money is your own, and you are to do what you 
 please with it. But if you did think of others a 
 little more, and less of yourself, Agnes, you 
 would be a much more amiable little girl.' 
 
 Agnes for a minute looked grave, for she saw 
 a tear in her mother's eye. But her mother did 
 not look angry, and she went on with her calcu- 
 lations and schemes about canary-birds and cages. 
 James was commissioned to purchase the bird 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 93 
 
 SO much desired, and as it was positively neces- 
 sary that the bird, when bought, should have a 
 habitation to live in, the tortoiseshell box designed 
 for Laura was to be changed into a card needle- 
 case, and the next morning Agnes's play-room 
 was adorned with a very pretty canary-bird in a 
 smart wire cage. 
 
 The next day Laura and Augusta Parker came 
 to visit their cousin, but they did not seem to take 
 so much pleasure in the new purchase as it was 
 supposed they would. They were very willing 
 to assist Agnes in feeding her bird, and admired 
 its plumage, which they thought very pretty and 
 very soft, and they expressed no desire to be play- 
 ing with anything else, for they saw Agnes was 
 better pleased to be taking down and putting up 
 her cage than in following any other amusement. 
 But they would much rather have been playing 
 with Agnes's new doll, or looking at some of her 
 story-books, or puzzles, or play-things, of which 
 she had such useless stores ; and when she did lead 
 them to some of these, neither Laura nor 
 Augusta thought more of the canary-bird, except 
 when it sang so loudly as to prevent the little girls 
 from hearing each other speak. Indeed, it did 
 sing so loudly that nothing else could be heard, 
 and Agnes herself was at length so tired of it 
 that she was sorry it had been purchased. Her 
 dear cousin Laura, too, who was so gentle and 
 good-natured, had lost part of her pretty present 
 by the purchase of this useless bird, and she 
 
94 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 should be ashamed to tell her mother she was 
 tired of it. 
 
 But she did not allow these thoughts to make 
 her miserable, and the three little girls spent a 
 very happy as well as a very busy day, for Laura 
 set all Agnes's cupboards and drawers to rights 
 for her, and looked over her maps and puzzles, 
 and placed the right pieces in the right boxes ; and 
 she sewed in some leaves that were torn out of 
 some of the prettiest story-books, for Agnes was 
 very careless with her books, and she placed 
 them all in nice even rows upon the shelves. Then 
 she mended the doll's frock, and made a very 
 pretty new doll's bonnet; and Augusta made a 
 tippet, all herself, even the cutting out and fitting, 
 though she was only six years old ; and she set the 
 doll's house in order, and wiped the dust from off 
 the little chairs and tables; and, in short, nothing 
 could be so happy and comfortable as were the 
 three little girls together. Then at last they 
 came to the box with the shells, but this Agnes 
 preferred not looking at, for she had very few 
 shells, compared to her cousin's collection, and 
 the box was not half so pretty, for Laura's box 
 was inlaid with ivory; and as Augusta was seiz- 
 ing upon the shells with her little dusting-cloth 
 in her hand, Agnes said: 
 
 *Oh, leave those, Augusta; they are not worth 
 thinking about.' 
 
 *BTit I thought j^ou were very fond of shells,' 
 said Laura. 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 95 
 
 *Yes, so I am,' replied Agnes; 'but not such a 
 set as these. They are nothing to yours.' And 
 she turned from them with contempt, and drew 
 Augusta to the other end of the room. 'Come, 
 Augusta, we will play at mother and children. I 
 will be your mother, and Laura and you shall be 
 my children.' 
 
 Laura and Augusta instantly agreed to what 
 their cousin proposed, and for some time the play 
 went on smoothly enough. But well inclined as 
 was Augusta to do everything to make herself 
 pleasant and agreeable, she did not like to 'pretend 
 to be naughty' so often as her little mother re- 
 quired of her ; and Agnes, as little mothers, I be- 
 lieve, frequently are, was very fond of having 
 her play-child to punish, and set in the corner, and 
 to lecture and scold. Laura thought there was 
 a little too much disgrace, and that she had much 
 rather have been allowed to be good; but Laura 
 never consulted her own wishes in opposition to 
 her playfellows. Besides, Laura was a great girl 
 and could not be supposed to care abovit these 
 things. But poor Augusta was a very little child 
 and had been accustomed to a great deal of indul- 
 gence from Laura, and she began to feel very 
 serious at being so frequently reproved and dis- 
 graced. She really thought she must be naughty, 
 or, at least, that Agnes thought her so ; and after 
 her little heart had been some time swelling with 
 emotion, she at length burst out into tears, say- 
 ing at the same time, with great vehemence: 
 
% THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 'Indeed, Cousin Agnes, I am not naughty!' 
 
 *No, you only pretend to be naughty,' said 
 Agnes. 'There, be a good child, and go in the 
 corner, and pretend to be naughty once more, and 
 presently, when you have done crying, I shall 
 come and ask you if you are good/ 
 
 *But, indeed, I am good now!' exclaimed 
 Augusta, resisting Agnes as she tried to lead 
 her back to the corner. And I don't like to be 
 naughty! I like to be good!' 
 
 'Let me be naughty; it is my turn to be 
 naughty now, Agnes,' said Laura, stepping for- 
 wards and taking Augusta's other hand. 
 
 *Oh, but it is not half so much fun for you to 
 be naughty,* said Agnes; 'you are such a great 
 girl. Besides, Augusta pretends to cry so well.* 
 
 'I don't pretend to cry, and I will not be 
 naughty any more!' said Augusta, who was now 
 irritated' into a violent pet ; and as she struggled 
 against her cousin, who attempted to draw her 
 to the corner, the poor child was thrown dowH, 
 and her head hit against the sharp corner of the 
 shell-box. 
 
 She gave a loud scream, and Mrs. Clavering 
 and Mrs. Parker hastened to the room. Laura 
 picked up her little sister, on whose forehead there 
 was a severe bruise. Agnes looked pale and 
 ashamed, but no one explained how the accident 
 had happened. 
 
 Mrs. Clavering caught up the sobbing Augusta 
 and rang the bell for cold water. The child ran 
 
97 
 
 Agnes threw her arms round the neck of her dear Laura. 
 
98 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 to her mother, who drew aside the curls which al- 
 most hid the bruise, and kissing her cheek and 
 forehead, good humouredly assured Mrs. Claver- 
 ing that it was only a trifling hurt, and in a few 
 minutes tranquillity was restored. But Augusta, 
 whose temper had been more hurt than her fore- 
 head, begged that she might accompany her 
 mother to the drawing-room ; and as the tea was 
 now nearly ready, Mrs. Clavering told Agnes she 
 might as well bring both of her cousins with her. 
 This arrangement was not very pleasing to 
 Agnes, for she had gained a half-promise from 
 her mother in the morning that she should herself 
 make tea for her cousins in a set of beautiful china 
 which she had lately received from Nottingham- 
 shire; but Mrs. Clavering saw from Augusta's 
 manner of clinging to her mother that something 
 of disagreement had taken place amongst the chil- 
 dren, and as she was aware of Agnes's incHnation 
 to be the mistress of the party, she judged that 
 it would be better for this evening that the elder 
 and younger parts of the family should make but 
 one party. Agnes was disappointed — very much 
 disappointed ; but she fortunately recollected that 
 the disappointment was owing to her own exer- 
 tion of authority over the poor little Augusta, and 
 she was wise enough to submit in silence. Mrs. 
 Parker, who was always lively and agreeable, 
 brought forward a great many laughable stories 
 for the amusement of the young party; and the 
 mortification of the young tea-maker, and the 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 99 
 
 pain of Augusta's forehead, and, more than this, 
 her anger against her cousin, had all subsided be- 
 fore the urn had done hissing and a pile of plum 
 cakes had been consumed. 
 
 This and a great many more days had passed 
 before Agnes paid another visit to her purse, 
 which lay snugly in her mothers' drawer. 
 Neither had her mother's drawer been opened, for 
 Mrs. Clavering had caught a severe cold, and for 
 several days she kept her bed. During this time 
 Agnes was very dull, for although she spent one 
 whole day with her cousins, and another with the 
 little Montagues, there was a great deal of time 
 she was by herself, and being a very sociable little 
 girl, she never preferred being without a compan- 
 ion. Her aunt Parker invited her to come 
 and stay with her entirely during her mother's 
 illness, but Mrs. Clavering preferred her remain- 
 ing at home. It was fortunate that she did so, 
 for Laura and Augusta Parker a few days after 
 fell severely ill with an infectious fever, and, of 
 course, it was no longer right that they should be 
 visited by their cousin. They were for some days 
 dangerously ill, and when they did begin to get 
 better, it was very slowly, and some weeks passed 
 before it was thought fit that the cousins should 
 meet. It was also some time before Mrs. Clav- 
 ering was sufficiently recovered to leave the house 
 again, either on foot or in the carriage ; but Mrs. 
 Montasfue frequently called for Agnes, and gave 
 her a ride in her carriage, and after her own way 
 
100 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 was very kind to her. But her way was that of 
 indulging her, as she did her own children, in 
 every wish they expressed. Whatever toys or 
 trinkets they wished for were purchased for them, 
 and so unreasonable had they been in their wishes 
 that Mrs. Montague had at length been driven to 
 refuse their going to the Bazaar altogether; for 
 when there she had not the resolution, as she 
 ought to have had, to deny them any particular 
 thing they had set their minds on. For this rea- 
 son, they had not been for some time to this temp- 
 ting repository of pretty things; but, finding that 
 their young friend Agnes was wishing to go 
 thither to purchase a blue bag, they engaged their 
 mother to take them once more, and a day was 
 fixed on for the proposed treat. 
 
 Mrs. Clavering was sufficiently recovered to be 
 sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room when 
 Agnes came to petition for her purse. 
 
 *And you have settled everything that you are 
 to buy, have you not, my little girl?' said Mrs. 
 Clavering, as she took from the drawer the silken 
 purse and placed it in the hand of the eager 
 Agnes. 
 
 *0h yes, mother,' replied Agnes, scarcely allow- 
 ing herself time to draw on her gloves, so anxious 
 was she to be going, and she ran towards the 
 door. 
 
 *But Mrs. Montague is not come yet, Agnes,* 
 said Mrs. Clavering. 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 101 
 
 *0h, I forgot/ replied Agnes, returning to- 
 wards her mother. Then, telling upon her fingers 
 she went on: 'Blue bag, thimble, needle-book, 
 scissors, winders.' 
 
 'And pincushion,' said Mrs. Clavering. 
 
 'Oh yes, pincushion; I had forgotten pin- 
 cushion. Yes, there must be a pincushion.' 
 
 'Now, could not you make the pincushion your- 
 self, Agnes?' asked Mrs. Clavering. 'And the 
 needle-case, I should think, too; and Laura would 
 like them better for your making them.' 
 
 'I do not think I should be able to make them 
 well enough, mother,' replied Agnes; 'and I 
 should not like to give anything clumsy to Laura. 
 No, I think I shall buy them.' 
 
 'Well, do as you please about this,' replied 
 Mrs. Clavering; and Mrs. Montague's carriage 
 being now heard to rattle down to the door, she 
 gave her little girl a hasty kiss, and Agnes ran 
 downstairs and was very soon on her road to the 
 Bazaar. 
 
 As they drove through the streets the little 
 Montagues were very eager in describing a beau- 
 tiful new stall which had been opened since they 
 had been to the Bazaar. It was one of French 
 toys and trinkets, and there were a great many 
 very pretty and very ingenious things exhibiting 
 there. There were dolls, and workboxes, and 
 wire-dancers, and puzzles of every description. 
 And so very anxious were all three of the little 
 girls to see and admire what all the little and great 
 
102 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 girls, too, of their acquaintance thought so very 
 well worth seeing and admiring that, when they 
 had left the carriage and entered the room, Mrs. 
 Montague could scarcely keep pace with the 
 nimble-footed little party. They paced round 
 and round the lower room, and were just ascend- 
 ing into the upper, when the first thought of the 
 blue bag crossed the recollection of Agnes. 
 
 *Oh, my little blue bag!' she said to her young 
 companions; and slipping behind them, stopped 
 at the stall where she had before seen it displayed. 
 
 It was sold. This was not the fault of Agnes. 
 
 Should they make another for the young lady? 
 It would be ready by to-morrow, and it should be 
 sent home to any place she should appoint. 
 
 'Yes— no.' 
 
 Agnes was in a great hurry to go upstairs to 
 the French stall, and Harriet and Eliza were 
 both urging her to make haste. 
 
 *There will be prettier bags at the French stall, 
 love, most likely,' whispered Mrs. Montague; 
 *and, if not, you could give this order as you re- 
 turned downstairs/ 
 
 Agnes wanted very little persuasion to des- 
 patch her business below, and the three little girls 
 again quickened their pace towards the upstair 
 room. 
 
 'How pretty!' *How beautiful!' *How curi- 
 ous!' 'Agnes look here,' and 'Harriet see this'; 
 and 'Eliza, pray look at that' ; and 'Mother, may 
 I buy this?' and 'Mother, may I buy that?' were 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 103 
 
 the hasty and rapid exclamations of the first few 
 minutes after the young party had arrived at the 
 famed French stall; and so very much inclined 
 were all of them to touch as well as look at every- 
 thing that the chattering lady behind the counter 
 was at length obliged in the most civil and polite 
 manner to beg that they would be careful, and 
 not touch what they did not want to buy. 
 
 But they wanted to buy everything, and found 
 it very difficult to determine what they wanted to 
 buy most; and whatever Harriet and Eliza fixed 
 upon for themselves, Agnes thought that she 
 should like the same for herself. There was no 
 blue bag at this stall, or, if there was, Agnes saw 
 none, nor any other bag. Her attention was first 
 drawn to a droll little fellow upon wires who 
 tumbled over and over again as fast as the eye 
 could follow him. Harriet bought one of these, 
 and Agnes longed for one. By the side of the 
 famous little tumbler there was a glittering row 
 of bright shining scissors, and a thought of Laura 
 glanced across our little Agnes. But the bag 
 was not yet bought. Besides, the bag might be 
 given without the scissors, and the woman said 
 there were but two of these little tumblers ever 
 made. Harriet had purchased the other, and 
 while Laura and the scissors made Agnes for a 
 moment hesitate, a gentleman put his hand upon 
 the remaining tumbler. Agnes looked up eagerly 
 in his face, and then at the woman; and the 
 woman said she believed the young lady was go- 
 
104 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 ing to buy that. The chance of losing it deter- 
 mined the young lady's wavering resolution, and 
 the tumbler was paid for, and the scissors forgot- 
 ten. Then came other things equally charming 
 and equally attractive. Laura was again 
 thought of in conjunction with a box of splen- 
 did thimbles, a tray of ivory winders, and pin- 
 cushions, and needle-cases without number. But 
 she could make the pincushion and needle-case, as 
 her mother had advised her, and her mother, no 
 doubt, would give her silk for the purpose; and 
 she could make a thread-case on to the pincushion ; 
 and then she should not want any winders. And 
 the thimble, and the scissors? Agnes found it 
 rather difficult to reason away these, but the sud- 
 den recollection that her father would be home be- 
 fore New Year's Day, and that he would assist 
 her in purchasing what she herself could not af- 
 ford to buy, turned the scale against poor Laura; 
 and at length all the whole list of useful articles 
 designed for the New Year's gift were by de- 
 grees abandoned for a collection of showy but 
 childish toys, which were to amuse their possessor 
 a day, but not longer, and perhaps not so long. 
 On returning dovnistairs the party again 
 passed the stall where the blue bag had first at- 
 tracted Agnes's admiration on a former visit. 
 The woman who was keeping the stall curtseyed 
 civilly, and asked if she might be allowed to make 
 another bag. Agnes felt ashamed, and hastened 
 on, for her purse was empty. But the feeling 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 105 
 
 did not continue painful very long, for the little 
 party were all in high spirits, and when they were 
 reseated in the carriage, their tongues went fast, 
 and their merriment continued till they arrived 
 at Mrs. Clavering's. The carriage stopped, the 
 step was let down, and Agnes, scarcely allowing 
 herself time to say good-bye to her companions 
 or thank Mrs. Montague for her morning's 
 pleasure, ran upstairs and into the drawing-room 
 to show her treasures to her mother. 
 
 'Oh, mother!' said the eager child, as she flew 
 across the room, and began to exhibit the contents 
 of all her little packets, 'did you ever see anything 
 so droll as this pretty fellow?' And the tumbler 
 was placed upon the table. *And I am sure I 
 never saw anything half so curious as this !' And 
 another paper packet was imrolled. 
 
 'And how hot you are, my poor child!' said Mrs. 
 Clavering, thinking of nothing for the first few 
 moments but the heated countenance of her child, 
 and her tippet, which was hanging half off, and 
 her bonnet, which was crushed into any shape 
 but its own. 'Why, what have you been doing 
 with yourself?* 
 
 'Only playing with Harriet and Eliza in the 
 carriage,' replied the breathless child, at the same 
 time shrugging her shoulders, for now that the 
 game of romps was over she was beginning to 
 feel rather uncomfortable. 'And look at this very 
 small wee-wee humming-top !' And another paper 
 was unrolled. 'And did you ever see such beau- 
 
1C6 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 tiful sweetmeats?' as the fourth and last packet 
 was displayed. 
 
 *Well, and where did you get all these things?' 
 said Mrs. Clavering, as she turned from the 
 heated child to the treasures displayed before her. 
 
 *0h, at the Bazaar! There is such a beautiful 
 new stall there, and it is covered with such pretty 
 things!' 
 
 'And do you think that Laura will like .ese 
 things so well as the blue bag, and the rest of the 
 things you talked of buying for her? And do 
 you think they will be as useful to her?' 
 
 *Oh, mother,' began stammering Agnes, 'these 
 things — mother — are not — these are not for 
 Laura, mother. These are — these are for my- 
 self.' 
 
 *Oh, Agnes,' said Mrs. Clavering very gravely, 
 *you have not been spending all your money upon 
 yourself and these foolish trifles, and forgetting 
 your kind, good-natured cousin Laura?' 
 
 Agnes's fingers were now engaged in twisting 
 round and round them the cotton from the reel ly- 
 ing on her mother's lap, and she felt and looked 
 very f oohsh. For a few moments nothing more 
 was said, but presently Agnes approached closer 
 to her mother and leaned against her. 
 
 Mrs. Clavering took no notice of her little girl, 
 and did not, as usual, encourage her endearing 
 advances. Presently Agnes ventured to say : 
 
 *It was my own money, mother, and you said I 
 might do as I pleased wdth it/ 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 107 
 
 However, Agnes knew a great deal better than 
 to think for a moment that this was any excuse 
 for her selfishness. 
 
 *Yes it was your own money,' replied Mrs. 
 Clavering, 'and it certainly was given you to 
 spend as you liked. But I am sorry, very sorry, 
 that I have a little girl who never considers aQv- 
 body's pleasure and amusement but her own.' 
 
 'The blue bag was sold,' said Agnes, after a 
 pause of a few minutes, during which she had 
 been picking the pins out of her mother's pin- 
 cushion and dropping them one by one on the 
 floor. 
 
 Mrs. Clavering took the pincushion gently 
 from the hand of her little girl, and desired her 
 to pick up the pins which she had been so care- 
 lessly scattering. 
 
 *Aiid were all the scissors and pincushions and 
 thimbles sold, too?' continued Mrs. Clavering. 
 And would it not have been possible to have had 
 another bag made, like the one you saw the other 
 day?' 
 
 'Yes, mother,' replied Agnes, as she replaced 
 the last pin in the pincushion; 'the woman did of- ^ 
 fer to make another, but I had no money left ^^ 
 then.' 
 
 *This will never do, Agnes, indeed,' said Mrs. 
 Clavering. *If you are allowed to indulge all 
 your wishes in this way w hile you continue a child, 
 you v/ill grow up to be a disagreeable and over- 
 bearing woman. Did you never read, "Whatso- 
 
108 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 ever ye would that men should do unto you, do 
 ye even so to them"? Come, tell me; try and 
 recollect.' And as Mrs. Clavering spoke her 
 voice softened, and she laid her cheek on the head 
 of her little girl, who had seated herself on a stool 
 at her feet. *Did you ever read of this?' 
 
 'Yes, mother, I have read it in the Bible,' re- 
 plied Agnes, as she turned round towards her 
 mother, and laid her head coaxingly on her lap. 
 
 'It was one of the directions of our blessed Sav- 
 iour,' continued Mrs. Clavering, 'and His direct- 
 ions we ought always to obey. Now, supposing 
 that your Cousin Laura had determined to give 
 you anything she knew you were very desirous of 
 having, should you like her to change her mind, 
 because she fancied something for herself which 
 she could not purchase without doing so ? Should 
 you not think she was unkind in doing so?' 
 
 'Yes, mother,' replied Agnes; 'but Laura did 
 not know I was going to give it her, and therefore 
 she will not think me unkind.' 
 
 'No, but you will know that you have been so,' 
 replied Mrs. Clavering; 'and I know that you 
 have been so, and I am very much hurt that you 
 are so, for, as I have frequently told you, I do not 
 like such little selfish ways as you too frequently 
 indulge.' 
 
 Agnes did not feel comfortable, and she had 
 not half the enjoyment of her new purchases 
 which she expected to have; and she had very little 
 pleasure in showing them to her cousins, who were 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 109 
 
 allowed on the next day, for the first time since 
 their illness, to come and play with her. The 
 tmnbler was not half so droll as he seemed to be 
 before she bought him. Augusta, however, was 
 delighted with him. She laughed aloud at all his 
 whimsical changes, and Agnes told her that she 
 might have it if she liked for she was tired of it — 
 not a very disinterested reason, but Augusta was 
 pleased with her present, and also with the sweet- 
 meats of which she partook, and some of which she 
 carried home to her brothers who were never for- 
 gotten. 
 
 New Year's Day was now approaching very 
 fast, and as it did aproach Agnes thought a great 
 deal of the little blue bag, and she longed for her 
 father's return, for she thought that he would 
 give her money if she asked for it, and still the 
 present might be made. But New Year's Day 
 arrived, and no f athen Mr. Clavering had been 
 detained by business, and might not be at home 
 yet for some weeks. Poor Agnes I her last hope 
 gone. An invitation to dinner arrived from 
 Uncle and Aunt Parker. It was Laura's birth- 
 day, and the two families generally on that day 
 had dined together. 
 
 On the day before Agnes felt very serious for 
 some minutes together, and when the thoughts of 
 the blue bag crossed her, none of her playthings 
 amused her, and she was grave, and very near 
 shedding tears several times. Mrs. Clavering 
 
110 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 watched these emotions in her little girl, but took 
 no notice of them till the following morning, 
 when, calling her to her side, she said: 
 
 *Agnes, I think you feel very sorry that you 
 have been so selfish, and I am sure that you have 
 not enjoyed yourself half so much with the vari- 
 ety of different things you have bought for your 
 own gratification as you would have done if you 
 had persevered in spending your money, accord- 
 ing to your first intentions, on your cousin Laura. 
 Now, I do not like that Laura should lose her 
 present, nor do I wish that you should suffer any 
 more mortification than you have done for the 
 fault you have committed, so that I have been 
 endeavouring to make an arrangement for you 
 that shall enable you still to oblige your cousin. 
 You remember asking me a day or two since why 
 I did not purchase new chimney ornaments, for 
 that mine looked verry shabby? It was my in- 
 tention to have done so yesterday, for you know 
 that I have pleasure in seeing the mantelpiece 
 prettily ornamented, particularly as your father 
 is always kind enough to admire it when it is so. 
 But I have given up this intention at present that 
 I might use the money which would have been 
 required for the purpose in a different wayj and 
 if, my dearest child,' continued the affectionate 
 mother, as a tear started into her eye, *I can teach 
 you by this, or by any other means, to learn to 
 sacrifice your own desires to those of others, I 
 
THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 111 
 
 shall never regret that the money has been em- 
 ployed in the pm'chase of a little blue bag.' 
 
 Thus saying, Mrs. Clavering opened the 
 drawer of her work-table, and exhibited a bag, 
 the exact copy of the one which Agnes had first 
 fixed on as a New Year's gift for her cousin. It 
 was as completely furnished within as it was ele- 
 gant on the outside. There was the gold thimble, 
 the gold sheath to the scissors, the tortoiseshell 
 needle-case, the ivory winders, and the pincushion 
 edged with blue, and stuck in minikin pins, with 
 the words, ^Affection — from Agnes to Laura.' 
 Agnes's little heart swelled with emotion. She 
 threw her arms round the neck of her mother, and 
 sobbed aloud, as she promised never again to be a 
 selfish little girl. 
 
 * Your feelings now, my sweet girl, are strongly 
 excited,' said Mrs. Clavering, as she pressed the 
 lovely child in her arms, *and at this moment I 
 know you mean to perform all that you promise. 
 You will find it difficult, perhaps, to keep your 
 promise; but you must strive hard to do so, and 
 in time no doubt you will succeed. Now go and 
 get your pelisse and bonnet put on, for the car- 
 riage will soon be at the door.' 
 
 Agnes tripped away with light steps and a 
 merrier heart than she expected would be her 
 companion to her uncle's. The carriage was 
 shortly after ready, and the cousins in half an 
 hour were together. Oh, how grateful did Agnes 
 feel to her mother when Laura met her! In 
 
112 THE LITTLE BLUE BAG 
 
 Laura's arms was the box of shells which she had 
 received from her uncle abroad, and which was 
 now quite full; for Laura had denied herself ev- 
 erything that she might complete the collection, 
 and she now presented it, with a feeling of calm 
 and quiet pleasure, to her beloved cousin. Agnes 
 felt ashamed and pleased, humbled and gratified, 
 as she threw her arms round the neck of her dear 
 Laura to thank her, and as she presented to the 
 delighted girl, in return for her beautiful box 
 of shells, the thimble, the scissors, the needle-case, 
 the winders, the pincushion, and the little blue 
 bag. 
 
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