ust look at
it. Do just look at this glass at the top: I can see my face in it, and
I can see some of the things that are in the room. In the box I mean to
keep small sweet cakes; and, Mark, I am sure I shall give you some, for
you have been so kind to let me have the six pence. Oh, Mark, I do
thank you so much."

"Stop, Rose, stop!" said Mark, "and do not thank me for the six pence
till you know what I mean you to do for it. The first thing I shall
tell you to do is, 'Put down the box.'"

"Put down the box!" said Rose: "not yet:--why must I put down the box?"

"Why! I tell you to do so; you are my child now, and must do what I bid
you."

Poor Rose!

"But I may play with the box? I must and will play with my nice new
box; that you will let me do."

"No, Rose," said Mark, "I can let you play with it no more. You must
come with me; I mean to send you out to find some cress, and then you
must go and try to sell it. Come, I shall put you on this hat of old
Bet's, and you must wear this old shawl, and you must tuck up your
frock, and go out to find the cress."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Rose; "you do not mean that I should do this?"

"But I do mean it, and you must go at once."

Mark put on the hat and the shawl for her. She was quite still, and
said not a word. Mark then took hold of her hand and led her to a field
near the house, and told her she must not come back till she had got as
much nice cress as would sell for two pence. He then shut the gate of
the field, and left poor Rose by her self.

At first she did not move, so strange did it seem to her that she
should be left thus.

Soon she sat down on a bank. When she had been there some time she got
up.

"How queer this is!" said she; "but it is all fun:" yet the laugh with
which she said this was soon a _cry_.

Rose was a girl not soon cast down; all that she had to do or to bear,
she did her best to do and to bear it well. She took a walk up and down
the field, and at last she thought, "Well, I might as well try and see
if I can find some cress;" and then she ran up and down till she had
got a great way from the house.

No cress could she find, so she thought she would turn back and go
home. But just when she had thought this, she saw on a pond, at the
foot of the long slope on which she stood, some bright green weed, that
she thought was cress. Off she set down the slope as fast as she could
run, and she ran so fast that she could not stop till she