“I did not know your bosom
      Was formed to suffer woe,
    And mourn your murdered offspring,
      Or I had not grieved you so.

    “I ever shall remember,
      The plaintive sounds I’ve heard;
    And never’ll kill a nestling
      To pain another bird.”

Jack was very much confused when he commenced reading.  As he read on, he looked more and more ashamed, and when he finished, his face was almost crimson.

Miss Norton was glad to see this, for she thought that it showed, that he was not entirely hardened; so she suffered him to go to his seat, without saying any more to him, hoping that this would be a sufficient reproof.  Before school was out, at noon, however, all Jack’s mortification had vanished, and in its stead, he indulged in very angry feelings towards Frank for he was sure that Frank had told of him.

“I’ll fix him,” he said to his seat-mate, Harry Day, a merry little fellow, whose roguish blue eyes looked quite capable of assisting where there was any mischief going on.

“What’ll you do?” said Harry.

“Why, I’ll get him mad, and then I’ll lick him; and I know how I’ll get him mad.”  So Jack, in accordance with his wicked resolution, wrote in very large letters upon a slip of paper, ‘boy-girl;’ on another slip, he wrote, ‘girl-boy,’ and giving Harry the one he had first written, he told him to pin it on to Fanny’s back, when they stopped in the entry, to get their bonnets and caps.  At the same time, he slily pinned the other on Frank’s roundabout.  So when Frank and Fanny went along out of school, as usual, the little children, amused by the slips of paper, ran after them, some calling, ‘boy-girl,’ and others, ‘girl-boy,’

Frank did not know what all this meant; but he kept on without looking back.

“Look behind you,” cried Harry Day, as he ran up to Fanny.  Jack kept some distance behind, and said nothing.

“Look behind you, I say,” shouted Harry again.

Fanny was turning to look, when Frank said to her in a low tone, without moving his head,

“Don’t look around, Fanny, and don’t mind what they call us, for I don’t care.”

[Illustration:  Jack MILLS’S Trick.]

So they kept on, side by side, the children still calling after them, and when they got away from the school house, Jack’s voice was heard among the rest, shouting, ‘tell-tale,’ ‘girl-baby,’ and other provoking nicknames.

Frank took no notice of them, until his sister stooped down to pick a flower, and as she did so, he saw the paper on her back.

“Who did this?” he said, and as he turned toward the children, he saw Jack throwing a stone.  The stone flew past him, hitting his sister in the face.  Fanny screamed, and the blood started from her nose.

Jack ran, and Frank’s first impulse was to spring after him; but he did not know how badly his sister might be hurt, and so he staid with her, and wiped the blood from her face.  The children crowded around, and Harry Day unpinned the pieces of paper, for he felt ashamed, for the part he had taken.