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Ben. Would it be fun to you to be drowned off and on for half an hour?

Tim. But these are puppies, not boys.

Ben. And don't they feel as we do?

Tim. I suppose not. I don't know. What does it matter? Come along, or it will be school-time. Ben. I do think farmer Willings is coming. Farmer Willings. What are all you lads after now ?

Tim. Only drowning some puppies, sir; father told me to.

Willings. And did he tell you to do it in that cruel way? Why, Tim, if you were my boy, I'd just hold your head under water, till you had a good taste of what drowning was like.

Tim. But these are only puppies.

Willings. And don't they feel pain? Who told you they didn't?

Tim I didn't know; one always goes on as if they didn't.

Willings. Tim, when you were a little fellow in petticoats, I saw you one day tearing flies' legs and wings off. Your mother said you were but a child and knew no better. I said if you were mine I would just pull your ear till you did know better. And I have one more thing to say: you expect next harvest that I should let you work with your father about my farm; you needn't expect it, for a cruel boy shall never come near my beasts.

Tim. Oh, sir, I didn't think you'd mind; I'd never hurt anything of yours. Hope, sir, you'll give me the trial!

Willings. Not I, Tim; not if I know it. I wouldn't trust a beast of mine to your care, not if you'd pay me to do it. A boy who takes pleasure in tormenting anything alive, if it were but a fly or a worm, shall have no footing on my premises.

ROBIN REDBREAST'S SECRET

I'm little Robin Redbreast, sir,
My nest is in the tree.

If you look up in yonder elm
My pleasant home you'll see.

We made it very soft and nice
My pretty mate and I;

And all the time we worked at it

We sang most merrily.

The green leaves shade our lovely home
From the hot scorching sun,

So

many birds live in the tree

We do not want for fun.

The light breeze gently rocks our nest

And hushes us to sleep,

We're up betimes to sing our song,
And the first daylight greet.

I have a secret I would like
The little girls to know ;
But I won't tell a single boy,
They rob the poor birds so.

We have four pretty little nests,
We watch them with great care;
Full fifty eggs are in this tree,

Don't tell the boys they're here.

Joe Thompson robbed the nest last year,
And, year before, Tom Brown.

I'll tell it loud as I can sing

[blocks in formation]

Swallow and sparrow, lark and thrush,
Will tell you just the same.

To make us all so sorrowful

Is such a wicked shame.

Oh! did

you hear the concert This morning from our tree?

We give it every morning

Just as the clock strikes three.

From "YOUTHS' PENNY GAZETTE."

THE ORANGE GIRL.

BETTY Baker was born nobody knows where, and was brought up nobody knows how. Poor people are often very good to each other, and Betsy's friends were especially so to her, because she was an orphan child, who, as they said, had nobody to give her a thought. So first one woman gave her shelter for a few days, and then another, till she got old enough to do errands and to earn a few pence.

She slept in the summer on door-steps, or under an archway, or under a cart in Covent Garden, where she often fed on the refuse vegetables and fruit that she picked off the ground. She was always in rags; but when they quite fell off, some kind person gave her some more. She was a strong, active girl, and the mistress of a gin-shop took a fancy to her, and told her she would give her a basket of oranges which she might hawk about the streets, and bring her what she got for them, and in return she would find her a bed, and odds and ends of food.

Betty was delighted, and managed to sell the oranges well. The room in which she slept was small, and sometimes ten or twelve people were huddled together there, on heaps of straw, and to her food her mistress often added a drop of gin to make up for a short meal. But poor Betty had known no better life, till one day she was selling oranges to a lady in Great Russell Street, who asked her where she lived. She told her, and the lady, a Mrs. Symes, found that Betty was paying her mistress a great deal more than the worth of her keep. So she told her to give notice to leave, and promised to lend her money enough to buy a basket of her own, and oranges of her own, which she should repay her by degrees.

The gin-shop mistress was very angry, but Betty left her. First Mrs. Symes sent her maid with her to one of the penny bathing places, and for the first time in her life she knew what a good wash was like. Then some decent clean clothes were ready for her, and then at one of the new model lodging-houses

she got a bed in a room with two respectable women for 1s. 6d. a week, and a good meal for 3d. at a dining-hall. She hardly knew herself, and wondered how she had lived in such dirt and misery before. Sunday used to be the best day for selling oranges, but Mrs. Symes persuaded her that for mind and body too she had better keep her Sundays.

Even horses are the worse for never having a rest all the seven days, much more a poor girl who is always on her feet. And Mrs. Symes found that the horses knew as much as Betty did about right and wrong, about the God who made her, the Saviour who died for her, the Bible that was written for her. She had never been inside a church, and could not have understood a word she heard if she had. She asked Mrs. Symes's servants to let her go with them to Westminster Abbey, which was near. She liked the music and the painted windows, and wondered at the large building, but that was all. But Betty was grateful to Mrs. Symes, and when she advised her to learn to read, and found for her an adult evening-school, she gladly went, and perhaps all she heard and all she read struck her much more than it does those children who have known it all their lives. It is certain that she became a very good girl; she repaid Mrs. Symes, saved money, was able to set up a shop near Oxford Street, and married a man who keeps a cab, and brings all his earnings home to his wife.

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