"'What are you doing?' shrieked Melchior. 'Drive on! drive on!'
"But even while he sprang up to seize the check-string the door had opened, the pale sister's face had dropped upon the shoulder of the figure in the cloak, and he had carried her away; and Melchior stormed and raved in vain.
"'To take her, and to leave the rest! Cruel! cruel!'
"In his rage and grief, he hardly knew it when the untidy brother was called, and putting his book under his arm, slipped out of the coach without looking to the right or left. Presently the coach stopped again; and when Melchior looked up the door was open, and at it was the fine man on the fine horse, who was lifting the sister on to the saddle before him. 'What fool's game are you playing?' said Melchior, angrily. 'I know that man. He is both ill-tempered and a bad character.'
"'You never told her so before,' muttered young Hop-o'-my-thumb.
"'Hold your tongue,' said Melchior. 'I forbade her to talk to him, which was enough.'
"'I don't want to leave you; but he cares for me, and you don't,' sobbed the sister; and she was carried away.
"When she had gone, the youngest brother slid down from his corner and came up to Melchior.
"'We are alone now, brother,' he said; 'let us be good friends. May I sit on the front seat with you, and have half the rug? I will be very good and polite, and will have nothing more to do with those fellows, if you will talk to me.'
"Now Melchior really rather liked the idea; but as his brother seemed to be in a submissive mood, he thought he would take the opportunity of giving him a good lecture, and would then graciously relent and forgive. So he began by asking him if he thought that he was fit company for him (Melchior), what he thought that gentlefolks would say to a boy who had been playing with such youths as young Hop-o'-my-thumb had, and whether the said youths were not scoundrels? And when the boy refused to say that they were, (for they had been kind to him,) Melchior said that his tastes were evidently as bad as ever, and even hinted at the old transportation threat. This was too much; the boy went angrily back to his window corner, and Melchior—like too many of us!—lost the opportunity of making peace for the sake of wagging his own tongue.