The Adventures of a Brownie

sit at once. There they often did sit, turn by turn, or one at a time--sometimes with a book, reading; and the biggest boy made a sort of rope-ladder by which they could climb up and down--which they did all winter, and enjoyed their "castle" very much.

But one day in spring they found their ladder cut away! The Gardener had done it, saying it injured the tree, which was just coming into blossom. Now this Gardener was a rather gruff man, with a growling voice. He did not mean to be unkind, but he disliked children; he said they bothered him. But when they complained to their mother about the ladder, she agreed with Gardener that the tree must not be injured, as it bore the biggest cherries in all the neighbourhood--so big that the old saying of "taking two bites at a cherry," came really true.

"Wait till the cherries are ripe," said she; and so the little people waited, and watched it through its leafing and blossoming--such sheets of blossom, white as snow!--till the fruit began to show, and g