ing for her return, ran after her as soon as
they saw her and overtook her as she reached the meadow.

"What did that good lady want with you?" cried William; but looking up
in his sister's face, he saw tears in her eyes, and he was silent and
walked on quietly. Susan saw her lamb by the water-side.

"Who are those two men?" said William. "What are they going to do with
Daisy?"

The two men were Attorney Case and the butcher. The butcher was
feeling whether the lamb was fat.

Susan sat down upon the bank in silent sorrow. Her little brothers ran
up to the butcher and asked whether he was going to do any harm to the
lamb. The butcher did not answer, but the Attorney replied, "It is not
your sister's lamb any longer; it's mine."

"Yours!" cried the children with terror; "and will you kill it?"

"No, that is what the butcher will do."

The little boys now burst into loud cries. They pushed away the
butcher's hand; they threw their arms round the neck of the lamb; they
kissed its forehead. It bleated. "It will not bleat to-morrow!" said
William, and he wept bitterly.

The butcher looked aside, and hastily rubbed his eyes with the corner
of his blue apron. The Attorney stood unmoved; he pulled up the head
of the lamb, which had just stooped to crop a mouthful of clover. "I
have no time to waste," he said. "Butcher, I leave it to you. If it's
fat--the sooner the better. I've nothing more to say." And he walked
off, deaf to the prayers of the poor children. As soon as the Attorney
was out of sight, Susan rose from the bank where she was seated, came
up to her lamb, and stooped to gather some of the fresh dewy clover,
that she might feed her pet for the last time. Poor Daisy licked the
well-known hand.

"Now, let us go," said Susan.

"I'll wait as long as you please," said the butcher.

Susan thanked him, but walked away quickly, without looking back. Her
little brothers begged the man to stay a few minutes, for they had
gathered a handful of blue speedwell and yellow crowsfoot, and they
were decking the poor animal. As it followed the boys through the
village, the children looked after them as they passed, and the
butcher's own son was among the number. The boy remembered Susan's
firmness about the shilling, for it had saved him a beating. He went
at once to his father to beg him to spare the lamb.

"I was thinking about it myself," said the butcher. "It's a sin to
kill a pet lamb, I'm thinking. Anyway, it's wha