On this seat she sat down now, and, when she had been some time, she thought she would fix her doll on a branch of a tree. She did so; and she thought she must run and ask her Aunt just to come and look at it. The doll was left, and off she went, full of glee and song.
Where her Aunt was gone Jane did not know; she was not in the rooms down stairs, nor was she in her own room up stairs; so Jane went in all parts of the house. "Aunt! Aunt!" she said, but no Aunt could she find. This took up a great deal of time, and at length she went back to the lime walk.
Poor Jane! what a sight for you to see was there!—"My doll! my doll! O my doll!" were the first words she said, and then she sank down on the seat near the tree. And where was this doll of poor Jane's? There it was—not the doll such as she had left it, but the doll with its head cut off!
The head was hung by a string to a branch of the tree, and the rest of the doll was on the ground.
"O my doll, my dear, dear doll! who can have done so bad a thing as this? my doll! my doll!"
Just at this time her Aunt came near the lime walk. She heard the sobs of Jane, and ran fast to see what was the cause. All she said when she saw the doll was, "My dear Jane," and she gave her such a kiss as an Aunt who loves her Niece can give. And then they went back to the house.
And who had done this bad thing? That must now be told.
There was a boy whose name was John Snap; he did not live far from Broom Hill, the house of Mr. Thorpe.
John Snap was not a good boy: he was so far from it that there was no one who had a child that did not try to keep him out of the way of John Snap. Mr. Thorpe had told Charles that he would not let him play with a boy he thought so ill of.
John Snap would take birds' nests, a thing which no boy with a kind heart could do; and he would tease dogs and cats, and do things that he knew would hurt them. Now it is quite sure that no good boy could do this; for he must know that all things that have life can feel pain as much as he feels it.