ut Bernard was out of humour, and looked
for something to find fault with, so of course he could find nothing to
please him.

"'This nail-driver is too small, Lucilla,' he said; 'where did you get
it?'

"'At L----,' she answered.

"'What did you give for it?' he asked. 'If you gave much, they have
cheated you; and the hammer, what did you give for that?'

"Lucilla either did not remember, or did not choose to tell him; and,
without noticing his questions, she said:

"'What will you make first?'

"Bernard did not answer.

"'Suppose you take this little square bit of deal,' said Lucilla, 'and
put legs to it, Bernard?'

"The boy took up the deal, turned it about, and, as Lucilla hoped, was
about to prepare a leg; for he took up a slender slip of wood, and
began paring it. She then went on with her work, looking up from time
to time, whilst Bernard went on cutting the slip. He pared and pared,
and notched awhile, till that slip was reduced to mere splinters. Still
Lucilla seemed to take no notice, but began to talk of anything she
could think of. Amongst other things, she talked of the pleasant week
they had before them, and of a scheme which their father had proposed
of their all going to drink tea some evening at a cottage in the wood;
she said, how pleasant it would be for them all to be together. No
answer again--Bernard had just spoiled another slip of wood, which he
finished off by wilfully snapping it in two; after which he stared his
sister full in the face, as if he was resolved to make her notice him.

"She saw what he was about, and therefore seemed as if she did not even
see him. She was sad, but she went on talking. The bells had struck up
again: they sounded sweetly, and they seemed sometimes to come as if
directly from the church, and then again as if from the woods and hills
on the opposite side. Lucilla remarked how odd this was, and said she
could not account for it; and then she added, 'Do you know, Bernard,
that I never hear bells ring without thinking of Alfred? he used to
love to hear them; he called them music, and once asked me if there
would be bells in heaven. I was very little then, only in my seventh
year, and I told him that there would be golden bells in heaven,
because the pilgrims had heard them ring when they were waiting in the
Land of Beulah to go over the River of Death.'

"'I say,' said Bernard, 'these bits of wood are not worth burning.'

"'You cut into them too deeply,' a