ch of the children, excepting Augusta, to whom she gave
only one. The rest of the apples she took out of the plate, and put in
her work-bag for her own eating.

When everyone had done dinner and the table-cloth was taken away, Lady
Noble's children got up and left the table, and Henry and Emily were
following, but Lucy whispered to them to say grace. Accordingly they
stood still by the table, and, putting their hands together, they said
the grace which they had been used to say after dinner at home.

"What are you doing?" said Augusta.

"We are saying grace," answered Lucy.

"Oh, I forgot," said Augusta; "your mamma is religious, and makes you
do all these things. How tiresome it must be! And where's the use of
it? It will be time enough to be religious, you know, when we get old,
and expect to die."

"Oh, but," said little Henry, "perhaps we may never live to be old;
many children die younger than we are."

Whilst Henry was speaking, William and Edward stood listening to him
with their mouths wide open, and when he had finished his speech they
broke out into a fit of laughter.

"When our parson dies, you shall be parson, Henry," said Edward; "but
I'll never go to church when you preach."

"No, he shan't be parson--he shall be clerk," said William; "then he
will have all the graves to dig."

"I'll tell you what," said Henry: "your mamma was never worse out in
her life than when she said hers were good children."

"Take that for your sauciness, you little beggar!" said Master William,
giving Henry a blow on the side of the head; and he would have given
him several more had not Lucy and Emily run in between.

"If you fight in this room, boys, I shall tell my mamma," said Miss
Augusta. "Come, go downstairs; we don't want you here. Go and feed your
dogs."

William and Edward accordingly went off, and left the little girls and
Henry to play quietly. Lucy and Emily were very much pleased with the
baby-house and the dolls, and Henry got upon the rocking-horse; and so
they amused themselves for a while. At length Miss Beaumont, who had
been sitting at work, went to fetch a book from an adjoining room. As
soon as she was out of sight, Miss Augusta, going softly up to the
table, took two apples out of her work-bag.

"Oh, Miss Augusta, what are you doing?" said Emily.

"She is stealing," said Henry.

"Stealing!" said Miss Augusta, coming back into the corner of the room
where the baby-house was; "what a vulgar b