Tea came just then, real afternoon tea, with thin bread and butter and two very nice little scone things on a separate plate and a little jug of cream, that I’m partic’larly fond of. Well, I tried not to be greedy, but I couldn’t help being rather pleased, when suddenly Mrs. Charlton said, “Pussy is so fond of cream, I know you won’t mind his having it,” and she crumbled up both the little scones and poured all the cream over them, every drop. Then she asked me to put it down on the floor in the corner. After tea Mrs. Charlton asked me if I’d like to read a little, because she said she’d look out a nice suitable book for me. I was very pleased, even though I found it was a book with a shiny red cover and green leaves on it, which sort generally aren’t interesting. It was called “_How Little Susan Saved the Home_,” and it was all about poor people. It wasn’t a bad sort of book, though it was written rather as if you had got no sense at all. It was about a little girl who used to wait outside the public-house every night to come home with her father. I don’t see that that was so horrid for her. When we were in London, the Punch and Judy shows were almost always at public-house corners, and once we saw a dear fat dog in a patchwork coat and the darlingest white mice on his back, but Cousin Sophy would never let us stop. Of course on wet nights it can’t have been such fun for Little Susan, but I dare say they’d have let her wait inside, only she seemed to be too silly to ask. In the middle of the book there was a very horrible bit, about the father getting tipsy and kind of mad, but he got all right at the end. It was in such big print I soon finished it, because I read very quickly. Mrs. Charlton had gone off to sleep, so I didn’t know what to do. I looked at the bookcase, but it was locked, so I walked round the room, and there in the back drawing-room, rather high up, was a shelf with some old-looking books on it. I went up to Mrs. Charlton to ask her if I might take one, but she was still asleep. Well, I didn’t really think she’d mind, because they were so shabby, so I climbed up on a chair and chose one called “_Peregrine Pickle_”; I thought from the name it might be about a boy who got into scrapes. It was rather disappointing inside, and the s’s were funny and difficult to read, but bits were interesting. It was written in a nice way too, not sillily like “_Little Susan_,” and there weren’t any horrid parts in it either. Suddenly, as I was reading, the book was snatched out of my hand. Mrs. Charlton was standing there looking furious. “How dare you take that book, you wicked girl!” she said; “go to your room and pray for a better nature.” I told her that I only took it because I’d finished the one that she gave me, and I didn’t know what to do till she woke, but she didn’t seem to believe me; it did seem curious and horrid.