e to the
parlour window, and, seeing the girl look so ill, she felt sorry she had
not bought the plumbs. Therefore, throwing up the sash, she asked the
cause of her sickly looks. The girl then told a sad story of distress:
she had been ill of a fever; her parents had caught the disease of her,
and were now very bad and not able to work for the support of their
children. In the little garden of their cottage a plumb-tree grew, and
she had picked the ripe plumbs and had come out to sell them that she
might buy physic for her parents and food for herself and her hungry
little sister. Mrs. Loft paid the girl the full price for her plumbs,
gave her wine to carry to her sick parents and food for herself and the
child, and bade her return the next day for more.

Soon after the grateful girl had left the house, Mrs. Loft, placing the
fruit in her dessert-baskets, found that, instead of forty-eight, there
were only forty-five plumbs; and, far from thinking her son had been
guilty of the theft, she laid the blame on the girl, who she now thought
had tried to impose on her. It was not the loss of three plumbs that
Mrs. Loft cared for, but the want of an honest mind that gave her
offence. She had meant to be a friend to the poor girl, but now she
began to doubt the truth of her story; for Mrs. Loft thought if she
could impose in one thing she might also in others. Deeming the girl
therefore no longer worthy of her kindness, she gave orders for her to
be sent away when she came on the morrow.

George had heard the whole: first, the tale of distress, and then his
mother's censure of the blameless girl. He had not only taken from a
poor, wretched creature a part of her little all, but had been the means
of bringing a foul reproach upon her, while her parents, who might have
been saved from greater distress by his mother's bounty, would now be
left helpless, in sickness and in sorrow. All this cruel mischief he had
done for the sake of eating three plumbs--he, too, who had never wanted
food, clothes, nor anything a child need desire to possess. He felt the
bitter pangs of guilt, and the fruit, whose shape and bloom had looked
so tempting, was now as hateful as poison to the sight of George.

There was still a way left to make some amends: namely, to confess his
fault to his mother. It did require some courage to do this; and when a
boy throws away his sense of honour, no wonder his courage should
forsake him. George could not resolve