'Well; this is very strange, and seems very unkind,' cried Adeline: 'I will speak to them.' So saying, she drew near the other children, who had interrupted their play to watch Adeline and their rejected playmate. 'What can be the reason,' said she, 'that you will not let that little boy play with you?' The boys looked down, and said nothing.
'Is he ill-natured?'
'No.'
'Does he not play fair?'
'Yes.'
'Don't you like him?'
'Yes.'
'Then why do you make him unhappy, by not letting him join in your sport?'
'Tell the lady. Jack,' cries one; and Jack, the biggest boy of the party, said: 'Because he is not a gentleman's son like us, and is only a little bastard.'
'Yes,' cried one of the other children; 'and his mamma is so proud she dresses him finer than we are, for all he is base-born: and our papas and mammas don't think him fit company for us.'