Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/106

68 "Always!" Bruno said with great decision. "Never was inside one. Was oo?"

Here I thought it well to interpose, and to mention the business on which we had come, and so relieved her, for a few minutes, from Bruno's perplexing questions.

"And those dear children will like a bit of cake, I'll warrant!" said the farmer's hospitable wife, when the business was concluded, as she opened her cupboard, and brought out a cake. "And don't you waste the crust, little gentleman!" she added, as she handed a good slice of it to Bruno. "You know what the poetry-book says about wilful waste?"

"No, I dont," said Bruno. "What doos he say about it?"

"Tell him, Bessie!" And the mother looked down, proudly and lovingly, on a rosy little maiden, who had just crept shyly into the room, and was leaning against her knee. "What's that your poetry-book says about wilful waste?"

"For wilful waste makes woeful want," Bessie recited, in an almost inaudible whisper: "and you may live to say 'How much I wish I had the crust that then I threw away!'"