sixpence."

LENNY.--"No, sir; 'cause you only gave it to make up for the half apple.
And if I had given the whole, as I ought to have done, why, I should have
had no right to the sixpence. Please, sir, don't be offended; do take it
back, will you?"

The parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as
the ass had poked its nose there before in quest of the apple.

"I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, "that if one don't give Justice
the first place at the table, all the other Virtues eat up her share."

Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a forward, impudent
baggage as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other
people's apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his
due; and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward
Virtue in her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in picking
the pockets of her sisters--tried to filch from him his lawful
recompense. The case was perplexing; for the parson held Susceptibility
in great honour, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to
give her a slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So
Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from
Lenny to the sixpence.

"Buon giorno, Good-day to you," said a voice behind, in an accent
slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure presented
itself at the stile.

Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of