ity was not long wanting. One fine afternoon a poor old
woman had come up to the playground with a basket of trifles, by the
sale of which she hoped to support herself during the unexpectedly long
absence of a sailor son. Her extreme neatness of person, and her quiet,
respectable manners had interested some of the boys in her appearance;
and when she came up to sell the little articles, many of which her own
industry had made, she generally found ready purchasers. Walter, who
knew her well, had visited her cottage, and had often seen the sailor
boy on whose earnings she in a great measure depended. This only son
had now been away for some time on a distant voyage, and the poor woman,
being pressed for the necessaries of life, took her basket once more to
the playground of Saint Winifred's. Charlie had often heard about her
from Walter, and he gladly made from her a few small purchases, in which
the other boys followed his example. While he was doing this, he
distinctly saw one of the Noelites--an ill-conditioned fellow in the
shell, named Penn--thrust his hand into the old woman's basket, which
was now surrounded by a large group of boys, and secrete a small bottle
of scent. Charlie waited a moment, expecting to see him pay for it, but
Penn, who fancied that he had been unobserved, dropped it quietly into
his pocket, and stood looking on with an innocent and indifferent air.

Instantly Charlie's indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly believe
his own eyes; he knew that a few of the very worst in the school, and
some in his own house in particular, would regard this as a venial
offence. They would not call it stealing but "bagging a thing," or, at
the worst, "cribbing it"--concealing the villainy under a new name, a
name with no very odious associations attached to it; just as they
called lying "cramming," under which title it sounded much less
repulsive. In fact, these young Noelites took a most Spartan view of
these petty larcenies, confining the criminality to the incurring of
detection. But they had never succeeded in making Charlie take this
view; he never would adopt the change of language by which they altered
the accepted meaning of words in accordance with their own propensities
and dispositions, and to him this particular act which Penn committed
with perfect nonchalance, appeared to be not only a theft, but a theft
accompanied by a cruelty and deadness to all sense of pity, which dipped
it in the