She was not mistaken, for in a minute or two Ned appeared, running quite fast up the lane, and in a few moments more he was standing by her side, panting and breathless.

“Dear grandmother,” he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered breath enough to speak, “I have a great deal of good news to tell you.  Farmer Tomkyns says he will employ me all through the winter, and pay me the same wages that he does now.  This is one piece of good news.  And the other is, that Mr. Stockwell, the greengrocer, will buy all my apricots, and give me a good price for them.  I am to take them to him next market-day.  I had to wait more than half-an-hour before I could speak to him, and that made me so late.  O how beautiful they are!” continued he, gazing with admiration at the tree.  “O grandmother, how happy I am!”

His grandmother smiled, and said she was glad to hear this good news.  “And now come in and have your tea, child,” she added; “for I am sure you must be hungry.”

“O grandmother,” said Ned, as they sat at tea, “now that Mr. Stockwell will buy the fruit, you will be able to have a cloak to keep you warm this winter.  It often used to grieve me, last year, to see you obliged to go to church such bitter cold weather, with only that thin old shawl on.  I know you said you could not spare money to get a cloak for yourself, because you had spent all you could save in buying me a jacket.  My tree has never borne fruit till this year; and you always said that when it did, I should do what I pleased with the money its fruit would fetch.  Now, there is nothing I should like to spend it on better than in getting a cloak for you.”

“Thank you, Ned,” replied his grandmother; “it would indeed be a very great comfort.  I do not think I should have suffered so much from rheumatism last winter, if I had had warmer clothing.  If it was not for your apricot-tree, I must have gone without a cloak this winter also; for, what with our pig dying, and your having no work to do in the spring, this has been but a bad year for us.”

“The money Mr. Stockwell is going to give me,” resumed Ned, “will be enough all but sixpence; and I have a new sixpence, you know, in a little box upstairs, that my aunt gave me last June, when I went to spend the day with her; so when I carry him the fruit, I shall take that in my pocket, and then when I come home in the evening I can bring the cloak with me.  O that will be a happy day!” continued Ned, getting up to jump and clap his hands for joy.

“There is another thing I am very glad of,” said he, sitting down again.  “Master is going to turn Tom Andrews away next week.”

“You ought not to be glad of that, Ned.  Tom is one of a large family; and his father being very poor, it must be a great help to have one of his children earning something.”

“But he is ill-natured to me, and often plagues me very much.  It was only yesterday he broke the best hoe, by knocking stones about with it, and then told master it was my doing.  Besides, he is idle, and does not mind what is said to him, and often gets into mischief.”