"'I should know your taste, ma'am,' said Betty, smiling, 'by this time, I should think--me who has lived in yours and your lady mother's service four-and-forty years next Candlemas;' and so saying Betty set out." "Pray, ma'am," asked Lucy, "what is an equipage?" "A fine carriage and horses, to be sure, Lucy," said Henry. "Lady Noble had an equipage. I heard John once say, 'That's a fine equipage,' when he saw Lady Noble riding by." "Oh, Henry," said Emily, "surely what Betty was to bring with her could not be a carriage and horses wrapped in paper." Mrs. Goodriche smiled, and explained to the children what Mrs. Howard meant: she told them that an equipage was a little case which held a thimble, scissors, a pencil, or other such little matters, and, being either of gold or silver, was hung to the girdle to balance the great watches worn by the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of people now living. "Thank you, ma'am," said Lucy; "and now please to go on, and tell us what Mrs. Howard meant to do with this equipage." "When Betty returned," continued Mrs. Goodriche, "Mrs. Howard was well satisfied with what she had done; and the very next Sunday evening she took occasion, after service, to speak to Master and Miss Bennet, and to invite them to tea for the next evening. "'I wonder,' said Master Jacky to Miss Polly, as they walked home together by their mother, 'what she can want with us. I promise you I shan't go.' "'What's that you are saying, Jacky?' said Mrs. Bennet. "Miss Polly then told her mother of the invitation and what her brother had said. "'You had best go,' said Mrs. Bennet, 'and you may, perhaps, get some pretty present. I was told by one who was told by another, that Betty was in town last week, and laying out money at the silversmith's, and at Mr. Bates the bookseller's, so I would have you go: you don't know but that the old lady may have some keepsakes to give you.' "'Well then,' said Jacky, 'if Polly goes, I will; for I don't see why she is to have the presents, and me nothing--but as to anything that Mrs. Howard ever gave me yet,' added the rude boy, 'I might put it into my eye and see none the worse.' "'And whose fault is that?' said Miss Polly. "'It don't become you to talk, Miss,' replied Jacky; 'for if I have had nothing, you have had no more--so there is half a dozen for one and six for another.' "By this discourse we may see," said Mrs. Goodriche, "that no great change for the better had yet passed on these rude children. "But they had got a notion that, as Jacky said, there were presents in the wind, and they set out for Mrs. Howard's determining to behave their best, though they did not tell their thoughts to each other, for Jacky hoped that Polly would disgrace herself and get nothing, and Polly had the same kind wishes for Jacky.