oys very kindly, and gave them some
tea and bread and butter. Having learned from Tom that his parents would
not be uneasy at his absence, she asked him to stay with them all the
evening.

The next day Tom looked wistfully at Ned, as if he wished to go home
with him, but did not like to say anything about it. Ned observed this,
and told him that his grandmother had said he might come whenever he
liked.

"Then I'll go to-night," said Tom.

And accordingly he went home with Ned that evening, and almost every
evening afterwards for some time. He helped Ned to work in his garden,
and took a part in all his other employments. Ned always read the Bible
after tea, which Tom at first thought very tiresome; and he would not
have stayed, had he not wished for Ned's company afterwards to walk part
of the way back with him to the village; but soon he became so much
interested in what he heard read, as well as by the improving and
interesting conversation of Ned's grandmother, that he looked forward to
the evening's reading as one of the pleasantest events of the day.

One afternoon, as the two boys were digging a bed in the garden, Tom
said to his companion--

"I have long been going to tell you of something that makes me very
uncomfortable; but I have never yet had courage to do it. I know you
think that I stole your apricots, don't you?"

Ned did not immediately reply. His good-nature made him unwilling to own
that he _did_ suspect Tom; and he could not tell an untruth, by saying
that he did not suspect him.

"Well," continued Tom, "I am sure you must; and I do not wonder at it.
Now the truth is, that when you told me about your apricots, I thought
to myself that I would come when it was dusk, and take two or three of
them just to eat, thinking that you would not miss such a small number.
But I did not like to go by myself; so I asked Fred Morris if he would
go with me. He said, 'O yes; he would go anywhere, or do anything, to
get some apricots.' He did not know of your tree, he added; or he should
have paid it a visit before. I began to be sorry I had told him, and
made him promise that he would not take more than three. When it got
dark, and we were set out, I felt that I was doing very wrong. I wished
to turn back; but Fred would not let me. He said I need not take any
fruit myself if I wanted to back out; but that if I did not go with him
to show him the tree, he would beat me within an inch of my life. So we
came to