ing children. When they became heavy enough to fall, their enterprise was unbounded. They surmounted every enclosure, they darted in and disappeared with magical alertness; those who had achieved an entrance supplied, through gates or hedges, those who stood without. They came in the evening with baskets and barrows, and, discovering there was no man upon the premises, waxed bolder and bolder. The accustomed phrases of dismission and dispersion failed to put them to flight. Rappings at the window, and commands to disappear, they met with a dogged defiance. I grieve to say that, in impudence of deportment, the girls were conspicuous. Since the usual forms of objurgation were powerless, I bethought me of another expedient. I said pleasantly: "Come in at the gate, to my south piazza, and I will give you apples." There I kept a large reservoir, and put some into every dirty hand, assuring them that all who would not help themselves should be thus supplied. They seemed content, and eventually their faces brightened at being called the children who would not take what did not belong to them. Encouraged by this proof of susceptibility, I proceeded, with the aid of an amiable and intelligent servant-girl, who was pleased to officiate as semi-almoner and usher, to teach the phrase "I thank you," and by little and little, the feat of a bow or courtesy. The last was considered as a grotesque achievement, or an act of supererogation, and at first was regarded with
