LUCY’S FRIENDS. v7

“Not stranger than ‘you hadn’t ought to,’
which Master Tom Noel more than once repeated
since I came in, or ‘you ben’t going, be you?’ which
his sister said to you just before she went awiy ;
why did you not laugh at these ?”

“T didn’t think it would be right to laugh at
my company.”

“And do you think it was right to laugh at
your cousin, whom her dying mother sent here,
believing she would find only friends in her uncle’s
house? ‘You may lose your father and mother,
Lucy, and be sent with Mary to her home. What
would you think, in such a case, of her laughing
at you, or encouraging her friends to laugh atyou?”’

‘*T could not help their laughing, mamma.”

“Yes, Lucy; had you been more affectionate
to Mary when they began to treat her rudely, and
shown, by your seriousness, your disapproval of
their conduct to her, it would have checked them,
and, what you may think of more consequence,
they would have respected you far more than they
now do.”

Lucy wept on silently for a few minutes, and
then said, ‘I am very sorry, mamma.”