"If they had only
stolen the apricots, I could have borne it better! But to see my dear
tree spoiled--It must die--it must be quite killed--only look how it is
cut!"
"I am very sorry for you, my poor boy," said his grandmother, kindly.
"It is a most vexatious thing."
"Oh!" cried Ned, "if I did but know who it was that had done it--"
"I would be revenged on them, some how or other," he was going to have
added; but the texts which he had learned a few days before concerning
the forgiveness of injuries, and which he had frequently repeated to
himself since, came into his mind, and he stopped short.
On looking round the garden, to see if they could discover any traces of
the thief, Ned and his grandmother saw the prints of a boy's shoe,
rather bigger than Ned's, in several of the beds, and hanging on the
quick-hedge were some tattered fragments of a red cotton handkerchief
checked with white. "I know this handkerchief," said Ned; "it is Tom
Andrews's; I have often seen him with it tied round his neck. It must be
he who stole my apricots."
"You cannot be sure that it is Tom who stole your apricots," rejoined
his grandmother. "Many other people besides him have red handkerchiefs."
"But I am sure it can be no one but Tom; for only yesterday, when I told
him about my apricots, and the money I expected to get for them, he said
he wished he knew how to get some, that he might have money too.
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