Page:The Knife.pdf/23

Rh, yet so hardy. Two children were standing close to the hedge, and their conversation accidentally caught Mr. Harvey's attention, who was riding along at that sauntering pace for which a green and shadowy lane seems especially made. "Ah! grandfather will never bring you any thing again; I've got his scissors quite safe." So saying, the little girl held up, with a great air of triumph, a shining pair of those feminine weapons, dangling by a piece of blue riband to her waist. "I'll tell him all about it; and I shall be the favourite then, and not you, Master Jem." "I'm sure, Mary," said the boy, "you need’nt talk; didn't I give you the string of birds' eggs I got for it?" "Well, well," replied his tormentor, who seemed about nine—a year older than her brother, "a knife cuts love, they say; and your grandfather won’t love you no more, now you've sold the knife he gave you. I've got my scissors—I've got  my scissors! and you've sold your penknife—your pretty tortoise-shell penknife!" And the girl ran down the garden, singing her last words over and over, her brother following, with a look half of remorse and half of anger. "Born with them—born with them: all alike! No pleasure equal to the pleasure of tormenting, to a woman. Well, my little maiden, some ten years