't see any good at all in it," he said; "the museum's just as
empty as it was before. I think we'd better break it all up into tiny
bits and throw it away."

"But the coins--" said Ambrose.

"Well, then," was David's next suggestion, "we'd better tell."

"If ever you dare to be so mean as that, I'll never speak to you or play
with you again," returned Ambrose. "So there!"

David looked very sulky.

"I hate having it in my garden," he said. "I'm always wanting to plant
things just where it is."

Disputes became so frequent between the boys that at length, by a silent
agreement, they avoided the subject altogether, and by degrees the crock
ceased to be so constantly in Ambrose's thoughts. But even when he had
managed to forget it entirely for a little while, something always
happened to bring it back to his memory, and this was the case after
Nancy had made her confession of the broken window.

"My dear Nancy," said Mrs Hawthorne when she was told of it, "you knew
it was wrong to throw things at your brother, didn't you?"

"Why, yes, mother," said Nancy; "but I didn't think of it till after the
window was broken."

"But it would have been just as wrong if the ruler had not hit anyone or
broken anything. The wrong thing was the feeling which made you throw
it."

"I shouldn't have minded so much, though," said Nancy, "if it hadn't hit
anything."

"I suppose not; and the next time you were vexed you would have been
still readier to throw something. Each wrong thing makes it easier to
do the next, and sometimes people go on until it comes to be more
natural to do wrong than right. But when they find that the wrong-doing
gets them into trouble, and gives them pain, they remember to stop in
time when they are most tempted. So it is not altogether a pity that
the window is broken."

"There are two panes," said Nancy, "it'll take three weeks'
pocket-money. You couldn't ask Mr Putney to put in very cheap glass,
could you, mother?"

Ambrose had listened attentively to all this, though he was apparently
deeply engaged in scooping out a boat with his penknife. It brought all
his old trouble about the crock back again with redoubled force. He
envied Nancy. Her fault was confessed and paid for. What was the loss
of three weeks' money compared with the possession of unlawfully got and
hidden treasure? And yet he felt it impossible to tell his mother that
he had not only disobeyed her, but persuaded David t