aults, and leave off
his bad ways.

The next day Ned, as usual, went early to his work. Tom Andrews was
very teasing, but Ned tried not to be provoked; and when Tom said
ill-natured things to him, he checked the angry replies he was tempted
to make. Two days afterwards, when Ned came home to tea, he thought with
pleasure that to-morrow was market-day at the town where Mr. Stockwell
lived; and he ran in and out twenty times, to look at, and admire, his
beautiful apricot-tree. "I must get up very early indeed to-morrow
morning," he said to his grandmother, "that I may gather the apricots,
and take them to Mr. Stockwell before I go to my work." Accordingly the
next morning he rose as soon as it was light, and, taking a basket the
greengrocer had lent him in his hand, went into the little garden to
line it with fresh green leaves, before putting the fruit into it.

What was his surprise and sorrow when he saw that every one of his
apricots was gone, and the tree itself sawn nearly in two, close to the
root!

Throwing down his basket, Ned ran to his grandmother, who was just come
down stairs, and had begun to light the fire.

He could only exclaim, "O my apricots, my apricots, they are all gone!
And my beautiful tree--" then covering his face with his hands, he burst
into tears.

"What is the matter, my dear?" inquired his grandmother.

Ned replied by taking her by the hand, and leading her into the garden.

"Who can have done this?" he exclaimed, sobbing. "If they had only
stolen the apricots, I could have borne it better! But to see my dear
tree spoiled--It must die--it must be quite killed--only look how it is
cut!"

"I am very sorry for you, my poor boy," said his grandmother, kindly.
"It is a most vexatious thing."

"Oh!" cried Ned, "if I did but know who it was that had done it--"

"I would be revenged on them, some how or other," he was going to have
added; but the texts which he had learned a few days before concerning
the forgiveness of injuries, and which he had frequently repeated to
himself since, came into his mind, and he stopped short.

On looking round the garden, to see if they could discover any traces of
the thief, Ned and his grandmother saw the prints of a boy's shoe,
rather bigger than Ned's, in several of the beds, and hanging on the
quick-hedge were some tattered fragments of a red cotton handkerchief
checked with white. "I know this handkerchief," said Ned; "it is Tom
Andrews's; I have