“And those dear children will like a bit of cake, I’ll warrant!” said the farmer’s hospitable wife, when the business was concluded, as she opened her cupboard, and brought out a cake. “And don’t you waste the crust, little gentleman!” she added, as she handed a good slice of it to Bruno. “You know what the poetry-book says about wilful waste?”
“No, I don’t,” said Bruno. “What doos he say about it?”
“Tell him, Bessie!” And the mother looked down, proudly and lovingly, on a rosy little maiden, who had just crept shyly into the room, and was leaning against her knee. “What’s that your poetry-book says about wilful waste?”
“For wilful waste makes woeful want,” Bessie recited, in an almost inaudible whisper: “and you may live to say ‘How much I wish I had the crust that then I threw away!’”
“Now try if you can say it, my dear! For wilful——”
“For wifful—sumfinoruvver—” Bruno began, readily enough; and then there came a dead pause. “Ca’n’t remember no more!”
“Well, what do you learn from it, then? You can tell us that, at any rate?”
Bruno ate a little more cake, and considered: but the moral did not seem to him to be a very obvious one.
“Always to——” Sylvie prompted him in a whisper.
“Always to——” Bruno softly repeated: and then, with sudden inspiration, “always to look where it goes to!”