HOME AT THE HAVEN.

of her uncle's fish-hooks had caught in her sleeve.
It had a long piece of twine fastened to it, and this
twine had brought with it other pieces of horsehair
and catgut, and all sorts of bristles, and feathers, and
artificial flies, had been scattered over the floor. Lucy
was at first in terrible alarm about the mischief she
had done, but, extricating the hook from her sleeve,
she picked up the rest of the tackle, and put it back on
the table, fearing to make matters worse by attempt-
ing to replace them as they had been before. She was
very vexed about it altogether, because it was the very
first time she had ever been in that room alone; but
it never occurred to her to try to prevent her uncle
from knowing that it was she who had disturbed his
things. She even went and stood by the garden-gate,
so as to be ready to tell him directly he came in from
his walk, and she said at once that she was afraid he
would find that she had done some mischief. "I think,
too, uncle," added she, "I ought to tell you that I
remember I put your letter into your letter-weight,
which I need not have done, because it was very light,
and I daresay I leant my elbow on the table for a
minute, and did not see that there were any hooks
there."
 Lucy followed her uncle into the room as he went
to see what was the matter, and she begged to be
allowed to try and disentangle the twine and horsehair,
which she did very patiently, so that it ended by her
uncle saying that no great harm had been done; and
any one could see that he was pleased at Lucy's frank-
ness and truthfulness in telling him about the affair.
Perhaps it was about this time that their Uncle Osborne
began to see the difference between the characters of
Edward and Lucy; for a little circumstance, which
happened a day or two after, showed it very plainly.