"And why not?" exclaimed Harold, sharply, "Elizabeth is quite right!Nothing steals like a magpie. Everybody says so. Come! let us towork! A ladder, a cord, and a long stick! Down with the nest!--Papa,will you allow me to climb the tree!"

_Lucy._--(Holding John by the arm.)--"Brother, how _can_you think of it? The elm is more than eighty feet high! Papa, I begof you, not to allow it."

_Father_.--(Calmly.)--"No one shall get up the tree and riskhis life, for a skinnyg which certainly is not there."