Henry. "How can you think of any such thing, Lucy? Do you take me for a thief?"
The next evening the children were playing again in the parlour window. Henry said to his sister, "I dare say that those beautiful apples will taste very good when papa gathers them."
"There, now, Henry!" said Lucy; "I told you that the next thing would be wishing for those apples. Why do you look at them?"
"Well, and if I do wish for them, is there any harm in that," answered Henry, "if I do not touch them?"
Lucy. "Oh! but now you have set your heart upon them, the devil may tempt you to take one of them, as he tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. You should not have looked at them, Henry."
Henry. "Oh, I shan't touch the apples! Don't be afraid."
"There was one he could just reach."—[Page 26].
Now Henry did not mean to steal the apples, it is true; but when people give way to sinful desires, their passions get so much power over them that they cannot say, "I will sin so far, and no further." That night, whenever Henry awoke, he thought of the beautiful apples. He got up before his parents, or his sisters, and went down into the garden. There was nobody up but John, who was in the stable. Henry went and stood under the apple-tree. He looked at the apples; there was one which he could just reach as he stood on his tip-toe. He stretched out his hand and plucked it from the tree, and ran with it, as he thought, out of sight behind the stable. Having eaten it in haste, he returned to the house.