Unknown

“ I should like to be as rich as our Squire best; but it would do to be as rich as Farmer Tomkyns. Oh, if I had only half as many sheep, and pigs, and cows, and haystacks, as he has, how happy I should be! Don't you wish you had some of the Squire's or Farmer Tomkyns's riches, Ned?"
"No," replied Ned, "I don't; because we ought not to wish for other people's things."
He then told Tom all that he could remember of what his grandmother had said to him about the sin of coveting what does not belong to us ”

“ But the most remarkable thing in the garden was an apricot-tree, which grew against the wall of the cottage, and which was covered with apricots of a large size and beautiful colour.
The cottage itself, though small and thatched with straw, was clean and cheerful, the brick floor was strewed with sand, and a white though coarse cloth was spread on the little deal table. On this table were placed tea-things, a loaf of bread, and some watercresses. A cat was purring on the hearth, and a kettle was boiling on the fire. ”

“ His grandmother replied, that this passage had once puzzled her; but that an old lady with whom she had lived when she was a girl, and who kindly took great pains in explaining different parts of the Bible that were hard to be understood, had made this quite clear to her.
"She told me," continued his grandmother, "that the Apostle alludes to the custom of melting gold and other metals by fire; and his meaning is, that as coals of fire melt and soften the metals on which they are heaped, so by kindness and gentleness we may melt and soften our enemy, and make him love, instead of hating us." ”

“ His grandmother smiled, and said she was glad to hear this good news. "And now come in and have your tea, child," she added; "for I am sure you must be hungry."
"O grandmother," said Ned, as they sat at tea, "now that Mr. Stockwell will buy the fruit, you will be able to have a cloak to keep you warm this winter. It often used to grieve me, last year, to see you obliged to go to church such bitter cold weather, with only that thin old shawl on. I know you said you could not spare money to get a cloak for yourself, because you had spent all you could save in buying me a jacket. ”

“ On each side of the narrow gravel walk that led from the lane to the cottage-door, was a little plot of cultivated ground. That on the right hand was planted with cabbages, onions, and other useful vegetables; that on the left, with gooseberry and currant-bushes, excepting one small strip, where stocks, sweet-peas, and rose-trees were growing; whose flowers, for they were now in full bloom, peeping over the neatly trimmed quick-hedge that fenced the garden from the road, had a gay and pretty appearance. Not a weed was to be found in any of the beds ”

“ She read again for about ten minutes longer, and then closing the Sacred Volume, rose, and, having laid the Book carefully on a shelf, opened the door, and went out into the garden, whence she could see farther into the lane, and remained for a considerable time leaning over the little wicket gate, in anxious expectation.
"What can be the reason that Ned is so late?" she said, half aloud, to herself. "He always hastens home to his poor old grandmother as soon as he has done work. What can make him an hour later than usual? ”

“ He tells me that he has to thank you, Ned, for his improvement; that he has learned from your example to be steady and industrious, and to try to correct his faults; and that it is you and your good grandmother who have taught him to love his Bible, and take pleasure in going to church. Tom also tells me that it is his fault your nice apricot tree was spoiled. Now there is a nurseryman, a friend of mine, whom I have several times had an opportunity of obliging, and I have no doubt that he will give me for you a strong young tree, at the proper time for planting fruit trees. ”

“ Father often says he wishes I was more like you; and I do think I should be happier if I was, for you always seem cheerful and contented, though you work harder than I do."
"I like working," answered Ned; "nothing makes me so dull as being idle. Besides, as grandmother says, people are far more likely to do wrong when they are not employed. You know the lines in the hymn,—
'For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do,'"
Tom looked down and coloured. ”

“ She was not mistaken, for in a minute or two Ned appeared, running quite fast up the lane, and in a few moments more he was standing by her side, panting and breathless.
"Dear grandmother," he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered breath enough to speak, "I have a great deal of good news to tell you. Farmer Tomkyns says he will employ me all through the winter, and pay me the same wages that he does now. This is one piece of good news. And the other is, that Mr. Stockwell, the greengrocer, will buy all my apricots, and give me a good price for them. ”

“ Fred Morris would not have thought of robbing the apricot-tree had not Tom put it into his head. In the Bible we are frequently charged not to lead our brother into sin; and heavy punishments are denounced against him who shall cause another to do evil."
"I used to think, grandmother," observed Ned, "that the tenth commandment must be the least important of all; I did not suppose there could be any very great harm in merely wishing for what belongs to another person ”

“ And again, speaking of himself, he tells us, 'I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content.' Besides, Tom, the rich are not always happy. They have a great many cares and anxieties that we know nothing of. ”

“ The next day Ned, as usual, went early to his work. Tom Andrews was very teasing, but Ned tried not to be provoked; and when Tom said ill-natured things to him, he checked the angry replies he was tempted to make. Two days afterwards, when Ned came home to tea, he thought with pleasure that to-morrow was market-day at the town where Mr. Stockwell lived; and he ran in and out twenty times, to look at, and admire, his beautiful apricot-tree. "I must get up very early indeed to-morrow morning," he said to his grandmother, "that I may gather the apricots, and take them to Mr. ”

“ Because, now father's out of work, mother says she can only give us two meals a-day. I only had a little bit of bread this morning; and I shall have nothing else till I go home in the evening, and then she will give me a cold potato or two. ”

“ Paul says, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, 'Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.' And our blessed Saviour has commanded us to 'love our enemies,' to 'do good to them that hate us, and to pray for those that despitefully use us, and persecute us.' If you will look at the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the sixth chapter of St. ”