d forfeits, she would try, by
different little artifices, to steal back her own before the time of
crying them came; or, if she was the person who was to cry them, as
you call it, she would endeavour to see whose came next, that she might
order the penalty accordingly.

'Or if we were playing at hide and seek, she would put what we had to
hide either in her own pocket, or throw it into the fire, so that it
would be impossible to find it; and then, after making her companions
hunt for it for an hour, till their patience was quite tired, and they
gave out; she would burst out in a loud laugh! and say she only did it
for fun. But, for my part, I never could see any joke in such kind of
things: the meanness, the baseness, the dish on our (sic), which
attendedit always, in my opinion, took off all degree of cleverness,
or pleasure from such actions.

'There was another of her sly tricks which I forgot to mention, and that
was, if at tea, or any other time, she got first to the plate of cake
or bread, she would place the piece she liked best where she thought
it would come to her turn to have it: or if at breakfast she saw her
sisters' basin have the under crust in it, and they happened not to be
by, or to see her, she would take it out, and put her own, which she
happened not to like so well, in the stead.

'Only think, my dears, what frightful, sly, naughty tricks to be guilty
of! And from practising these, which she said there was no harm in, and
she only did them in play, and for a bit of fun, at last she came, by
degrees, to be guilty of greater. She two or three different times, when
she was not seen, stole things out of shops; and one day, when she
was upon a visit, and thought she could do it cleverly, without being
discovered, put a couple of table spoons into her pocket. The footman
who was waiting happened to see her; but fearing to give offence, he
took no notice of it till after she was gone home, when he told his
master, who, justly provoked at being so ill-treated, by a person to
whom he had shown every civility, went after her, called in her own two
maids, and his footman, as witnesses, and then insisted upon examining
her pockets, where he indeed found his own two spoons. He then sent for
proper officers to secure her, had her taken into custody, and for that
offence it was that she was transported.

'Thus, my dear children, you see the shocking consequence of ever
suffering such vile habits to grow upon