PAGE THE ORPHANS 1 LAZY LAWRENCE 19 THE FALSE KEY 41 SIMPLE SUSAN 61 THE WHITE PIGEON 114 THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 123 ETON MONTEM 135 FORGIVE AND FORGET 173 WASTE NOT, WANT NOT; OR, TWO STRINGS TO YOUR BOW 185 OLD POZ 208 THE MIMIC 219 THE BARRING OUT; OR, PARTY SPIRIT 246 THE BRACELETS 279 THE LITTLE MERCHANTS 301 TARLTON 349 THE BASKET WOMAN 365 THE ORPHANS. NEAR the ruins of the castle of Rossmore, in Ireland, is a small cabin, in which there once lived a widow and her four children. As long as she was able to work, she was very industrious, and was accounted the best spinner in the parish; but she overworked herself at last, and fell ill, so that she could not sit to her wheel as she used to do, and was obliged to give it up to her eldest daughter, Mary. Mary was at this time about twelve years old. One evening she was sitting at the foot of her mother’s bed spinning, and her little brothers and sisters were gathered round the fire eating their potatoes and milk for supper. “Bless them, the poor young creatures!” said the widow, who, as she lay on her bed, which she knew must be her deathbed, was thinking of what would become of her children after she was gone. Mary stopped her wheel, for she was afraid that the noise of it had wakened her mother, and would hinder her from going to sleep again. “No need to stop the wheel, Mary, dear, for me,” said her mother, “I was not asleep; nor is it _that_ which keeps me from sleep. But don’t overwork yourself, Mary.” “Oh, no fear of that,” replied Mary; “I’m strong and hearty.” “So was I once,” said her mother. “And so you will be again, I hope,” said Mary, “when the fine weather comes again.” “The fine weather will never come again to me,” said her mother. “’Tis a folly, Mary, to hope for that; but what I hope is, that you’ll find some friend—some help—orphans as you’ll soon all of you be. And one thing comforts my heart, even as I _am_ lying here, that not a soul in the wide world I am leaving has to complain of me. Though poor I have lived honest, and I have brought you up to be the same, Mary; and I am sure the little ones will take after you; for you’ll be good to them—as good to them as you can.”