like, for though she had never read it, one of her school-fellows had
told her it was all about the sea, and desert islands, and cocoanut-trees,
just the things that Jem liked to hear about. How happy they would all
be this evening.

She hurried Jenny off to bed before her brothers came home; Jenny did
not like to go so early, and had to be bribed and coaxed to give up the
pleasure of sitting on brother Tom's knee; and when she was in bed, she
could not go to sleep, and kept up a little whimper of distress. Bessy
kept calling out to her, now in gentle, now in sharp tones, as she made
the hearth clean and bright against her brothers' return, as she settled
Bill and Mary to their next day's lessons, and got her work ready for a
happy evening.

Presently the elder boys came in.

"Where's Jenny?" asked Tom, the first thing.

"I've put her to bed," said Bessy. "I've borrowed a book for you to read
to me while I darn the stockings; and it was time for Jenny to go."

"Mother never puts her to bed so soon," said Tom, dissatisfied.

"But she'd be so in the way of any quietness over our reading," said
Bessy.

"I don't want to read," said Tom; "I want Jenny to sit on my knee, as
she always does, while I eat my supper."

"Tom, Tom, dear Tom!" called out little Jenny, who had heard his voice,
and, perhaps, a little of the conversation.

Tom made but two steps upstairs, and re-appeared with Jenny in his arms,
in her night-clothes. The little girl looked at Bessy half triumphant
and half afraid. Bessy did not speak, but she was evidently very much
displeased. Tom began to eat his porridge with Jenny on his knee. Bessy
sat in sullen silence; she was vexed with Tom, vexed with Jenny, and
vexed with Jem, to gratify whose taste for reading travels she had
especially borrowed this book, which he seemed to care so little about.
She brooded over her fancied wrongs, ready to fall upon the first person
who might give the slightest occasion for anger. It happened to be poor
little Jenny, who, by some awkward movement, knocked over the jug of
milk, and made a great splash on Bessy's clean white floor.

"Never mind!" said Tom, as Jenny began to cry. "I like my porridge as
well without milk as with it."

"Oh, never mind!" said Bessy, her colour rising, and her breath growing
shorter. "Never mind dirtying anything, Jenny; it's only giving trouble
to Bessy! But I'll make you mind," continued she, as she caught a glance
of intelligence p