at an equipage was a little case which held a
thimble, scissors, a pencil, or other such little matters, and, being
either of gold or silver, was hung to the girdle to balance the great
watches worn by the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of people now
living.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Lucy; "and now please to go on, and tell us
what Mrs. Howard meant to do with this equipage."

"When Betty returned," continued Mrs. Goodriche, "Mrs. Howard was well
satisfied with what she had done; and the very next Sunday evening she
took occasion, after service, to speak to Master and Miss Bennet, and
to invite them to tea for the next evening.

"'I wonder,' said Master Jacky to Miss Polly, as they walked home
together by their mother, 'what she can want with us. I promise you I
shan't go.'

"'What's that you are saying, Jacky?' said Mrs. Bennet.

"Miss Polly then told her mother of the invitation and what her brother
had said.

"'You had best go,' said Mrs. Bennet, 'and you may, perhaps, get some
pretty present. I was told by one who was told by another, that Betty
was in town last week, and laying out money at the silversmith's, and
at Mr. Bates the bookseller's, so I would have you go: you don't know
but that the old lady may have some keepsakes to give you.'

"'Well then,' said Jacky, 'if Polly goes, I will; for I don't see why
she is to have the presents, and me nothing--but as to anything that
Mrs. Howard ever gave me yet,' added the rude boy, 'I might put it into
my eye and see none the worse.'

"'And whose fault is that?' said Miss Polly.

"'It don't become you to talk, Miss,' replied Jacky; 'for if I have had
nothing, you have had no more--so there is half a dozen for one and six
for another.'

"By this discourse we may see," said Mrs. Goodriche, "that no great
change for the better had yet passed on these rude children.

"But they had got a notion that, as Jacky said, there were presents in
the wind, and they set out for Mrs. Howard's determining to behave
their best, though they did not tell their thoughts to each other, for
Jacky hoped that Polly would disgrace herself and get nothing, and
Polly had the same kind wishes for Jacky.

"Mrs. Howard received them in the summer parlour, and they both behaved
themselves very well, but more out of spite for each other than from
love of what is right in itself; but you shall hear by-and-by how I
came to the knowledge of these their thoughts.

"Betty had made a c