passed by the window in the evening without a servant,
and sometimes were met by a servant near the house. These little ones
could not, from their appearance, have been more than seven years of
age.

"As Mrs. Howard watched them from day to day, she thought them the
pleasantest little people she had seen for a long time; and all her
ancient love for children, which age and weakness had almost made her
fancy was nipped and blighted, began to spring up again and blossom as
flowers in May. She wished to get acquainted with these fair ones, but
she took her own way to do so.

"She began one morning, when her window was open, by giving them a kind
smile as they were walking gravely by, with a man in a smock-frock
behind them. On seeing this smile they both stopped short and dropped
formal curtseys.

"From that time, for a week or more, these smiles and these curtseys
passed between the old lady and the twins twice every day regularly.
Before the end of the week the children had left off looking grave at
the lady, and gave smile for smile. You may be sure that Mrs. Howard,
though she had not poor Betty and Crop to send on her errands, did
manage to get some pretty toys ready to give these little girls
whenever the time should come when she should think it right to make
herself better acquainted with them; but she thought that she would
observe their ways first, and in doing so she saw several things which
pleased her. Once she saw them give a poor beggar some of what had been
put in their satchels for their dinners; and she saw them another time
pick up something which a very old man had dropped, and give it him as
politely as they would have done to my lord judge, though it was only a
potato which he had dropped from a basket. Seeing this it reminded her
of the old man and his bundle of sticks, and of the ill-behaviour of
Master Bennet; and then all those old days came fresh to her mind. Mrs.
Howard had sent to a friend in London to get the toys--two dolls
exactly alike, and the histories of Miss Jemima Meek and Peter Pippin
were the things she sent for; and they had not arrived a week when Mrs.
Howard found a use for them. It was the beginning of July, and a very
hot close day; Mrs. Howard sat at her window, and saw the little ones
go as usual towards the village; it was Saturday, and she knew that
they would be back again about one, for it was a half-holiday. The heat
became greater and greater towards noon; there was