indifferent
to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and make much of
her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that she should like
to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her, especially as it might vex
Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if she dared, because he didn't
mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there, Maggie was sure he would have
got friends with her sooner.

Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that it
is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for some
other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where they were
not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice of sport.
The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of
breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary visit to the
pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.

"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down with great
significance, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I
mean to do?"

"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.

"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if
you like," said the young sultan.

"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the
garden."

"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody
'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do,--I'll run off home."

"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed to
such severe temptation.

"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I
took you."

Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the
rare treat of doing something naughty,--excited also by the mention of
that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether it
was a fish or a fowl. Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not
resist the impulse to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to
lose sight of their objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do
or see anything of which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable
idea to Maggie. So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom,
who was presently absorbed in watching for the pike,--a highly
interesting monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and
to have such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities,
did not show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something
in rapid movement in the water