"When Betty returned," continued Mrs. Goodriche, "Mrs. Howard was well satisfied with what she had done; and the very next Sunday evening she took occasion, after service, to speak to Master and Miss Bennet, and to invite them to tea for the next evening.
"'I wonder,' said Master Jacky to Miss Polly, as they walked home together by their mother, 'what she can want with us. I promise you I shan't go.'
"'What's that you are saying, Jacky?' said Mrs. Bennet.
"Miss Polly then told her mother of the invitation and what her brother had said.
"'You had best go,' said Mrs. Bennet, 'and you may, perhaps, get some pretty present. I was told by one who was told by another, that Betty was in town last week, and laying out money at the silversmith's, and at Mr. Bates the bookseller's, so I would have you go: you don't know but that the old lady may have some keepsakes to give you.'
"'Well then,' said Jacky, 'if Polly goes, I will; for I don't see why she is to have the presents, and me nothing—but as to anything that Mrs. Howard ever gave me yet,' added the rude boy, 'I might put it into my eye and see none the worse.'
"'And whose fault is that?' said Miss Polly.
"'It don't become you to talk, Miss,' replied Jacky; 'for if I have had nothing, you have had no more—so there is half a dozen for one and six for another.'
"By this discourse we may see," said Mrs. Goodriche, "that no great change for the better had yet passed on these rude children.
"But they had got a notion that, as Jacky said, there were presents in the wind, and they set out for Mrs. Howard's determining to behave their best, though they did not tell their thoughts to each other, for Jacky hoped that Polly would disgrace herself and get nothing, and Polly had the same kind wishes for Jacky.