"What are we to do?" exclaimed Isobel anxiously. "We can't take the pears when we haven't paid for them properly; it would be stealing."
"I'll bring her another halfpenny to-morrow," suggested Belle.
"But suppose before that she looks at the money and finds out; she'll think we have been trying to cheat her."
"Perhaps she won't remember who gave it to her."
"Oh! but that wouldn't make it any better," said Isobel. "Look here; let us take back the bag, and tell her we paid the wrong money, and ask her to give us only half the pears."
"Very well," answered Belle. "You go in, will you? I don't like to."
Isobel seized the parcel, and quickly re-entered the shop.
"I'm ever so sorry," she said breathlessly, "but we find we've made such a dreadful mistake. We meant to give you a penny, and it wasn't a penny at all—only a halfpenny squashed out flat on the railway line; so, please, will you take back half the pears, because we neither of us have a proper penny in our pockets."
The woman laughed.
"I didn't think to notice what you give me," she said. "But you're an honest little girl to come and tell me. No, I won't take back none of the pears. You're welcome to them, I'm sure."