Forgive And Forget

________________________________________________
Title:     Forgive And Forget
Author: Maria Edgeworth [More Titles by Edgeworth]

In the neighbourhood of a seaport town in the west of England, there lived a gardener, who had one son, called Maurice, to whom he was very partial. One day his father sent him to the neighbouring town to purchase some garden seeds for him. When Maurice got to the seed-shop, it was full of people, who were all impatient to be served: first a great tall man, and next a great fat woman pushed before him; and he stood quietly beside the counter, waiting till somebody should be at leisure to attend to him. At length, when all the other people who were in the shop had got what they wanted, the shopman turned to Maurice--"And what do you want, my patient little fellow?" said he.

"I want all these seeds for my father," said Maurice, putting a list of seeds into the shopman's hand; "and I have brought money to pay for them all."

The seedsman looked out all the seeds that Maurice wanted, and packed them up in paper: he was folding up some painted lady-peas, when, from a door at the back of the shop, there came in a square, rough-faced man, who exclaimed, the moment he came in, "Are the seeds I ordered ready?-- The wind's fair--they ought to have been aboard yesterday. And my china jar, is it packed up and directed? where is it?"

"It is up there on the shelf over your head, sir," answered the seedsman. "It is very safe, you see; but we have not had time to pack it yet. It shall be done to-day; and we will get the seeds ready for you, sir, immediately."

"Immediately! then stir about it. The seeds will not pack themselves up. Make haste, pray."

"Immediately, sir, as soon as I have done up the parcel for this little boy."

"What signifies the parcel for this little boy? He can wait, and I cannot--wind and tide wait for no man. Here, my good lad, take your parcel, and sheer off," said the impatient man; and, as he spoke, he took up the parcel of seeds from the counter, as the shopman stooped to look for a sheet of thick brown paper and packthread to tie it up.

The parcel was but loosely folded up, and as the impatient man lifted it, the weight of the peas which were withinside of it burst the paper, and all the seeds fell out upon the floor, whilst Maurice in vain held his hands to catch them. The peas rolled to all parts of the shop; the impatient man swore at them, but Maurice, without being out of humour, set about collecting them as fast as possible.

Whilst the boy was busied in this manner, the man got what seeds he wanted; and as he was talking about them, a sailor came into the shop, and said, "Captain, the wind has changed within these five minutes, and it looks as if we should have ugly weather."

"Well, I'm glad of it," replied the rough faced man, who was the captain of a ship. "I am glad to have a day longer to stay ashore, and I've business enough on my hands." The captain pushed forward towards the shop door. Maurice, who was kneeling on the floor, picking up his seeds, saw that the captain's foot was entangled in some packthread which hung down from the shelf on which the china jar stood. Maurice saw that, if the captain took one more step forward, he must pull the string, so that it would throw down the jar, round the bottom of which the packthread was entangled. He immediately caught hold of the captain's leg, and stopped him. "Stay! Stand still, sir!" said he, "or you will break your china jar."

The man stood still, looked, and saw how the packthread had caught in his shoe buckle, and how it was near dragging down his beautiful china jar. "I am really very much obliged to you, my little fellow," said he. "You have saved my jar, which I would not have broken for ten guineas, for it is for my wife, and I've brought it safe from abroad many a league. It would have been a pity if I had broken it just when it was safe landed. I am really much obliged to you, my little fellow, this was returning good for evil. I am sorry I threw down your seeds, as you are such a good natured, forgiving boy. Be so kind," continued he, turning to the shopman, "as to reach down that china jar for me."

The shopman lifted down the jar very carefully, and the captain took off the cover, and pulled out some tulip roots. "You seem, by the quantity of seeds you have got, to belong to a gardener. Are you fond of gardening?" said he to Maurice.

"Yes, sir," replied Maurice, "very fond of it; for my father is a gardener, and he lets me help him at his work, and he has given me a little garden of my own."

"Then here are a couple of tulip-roots for you; and if you take care of them, I'll promise you that you will have the finest tulips in England in your little garden. These tulips were given to me by a Dutch merchant, who told me that they were some of the rarest and finest in Holland. They will prosper with you, I'm sure, wind and weather permitting."

Maurice thanked the gentleman, and returned home, eager to show his precious tulip-roots to his father, and to a companion of his, the son of a nurseryman, who lived near him. Arthur was the name of the nurseryman's son.

The first thing Maurice did, after showing his tulip-roots to his father, was to run to Arthur's garden in search of him. Their gardens were separated only by a low wall of loose stones: "Arthur! Arthur! where are you? Are you in your garden! I want you." But Arthur made no answer, and did not, as usual, come running to meet his friend. "I know where you are," continued Maurice, "and I'm coming to you as fast as the raspberry-bushes will let me. I have good news for you--something you'll be delighted to see, Arthur!--Ha!--but here is something that I am not delighted to see, I am sure," said poor Maurice, who, when he had got through the raspberry-bushes, and had come in sight of his own garden, beheld his bell-glass--his beloved bell-glass, under which his cucumbers were grown so finely--his only bell-glass, broken to pieces!

"I am sorry for it," said Arthur, who stood leaning upon his spade in his own garden; "I am afraid you will be very angry with me."

"Why, was it you, Arthur, broke my bell-glass! Oh, how could you do so?"

"I was throwing weeds and rubbish over the wall, and by accident a great lump of couch-grass, with stones hanging to the roots, fell upon your bell-glass, and broke it, as you see."

Maurice lifted up the lump of couch-grass, which had fallen through the broken glass upon his cucumbers, and he looked at his cucumbers for a moment in silence--"Oh, my poor cucumbers! you must all die now. I shall see all your yellow flowers withered tomorrow; but it is done, and it cannot be helped; so, Arthur, let us say no more about it."

"You are very good; I thought you would have been angry. I am sure I should have been exceedingly angry if you had broken the glass, if it had been mine."

"Oh, forgive and forget, as my father always says; that's the best way. Look what I have got for you." Then he told Arthur the story of the captain of the ship, and the china jar; the seeds having been thrown down, and of the fine tulip-roots which had been given to him; and Maurice concluded by offering one of the precious roots to Arthur, who thanked him with great joy, and repeatedly said, "How good you were not to be angry with me for breaking your bell-glass! I am much more sorry for it than if you had been in a passion with me!"

Arthur now went to plant his tulip-root: and Maurice looked at the beds which his companion had been digging, and at all the things which were coming up in his garden.

"I don't know how it is," said Arthur, "but you always seem as glad to see the things in my garden coming up, and doing well, as if they were all your own. I am much happier since my father came to live here, and since you and I have been allowed to work and to play together, than I ever was before; for you must know, before we came to live here, I had a cousin in the house with me, who used to plague me. He was not nearly so good-natured as you are. He never took pleasure in looking at my garden, or at anything that I did that was well done; and he never gave me a share of anything that he had; and so I did not like him; how could I? But, I believe that hating people makes us unhappy; for I know I never was happy when I was quarrelling with him; and I am always happy with you, Maurice. You know we never quarrel."

It would be well for all the world if they could be convinced, like Arthur, that to live in friendship is better than to quarrel. It would be well for all the world if they followed Maurice's maxim of "Forgive and Forget," when they receive, or when they imagine that they receive, an injury.

Arthur's father, Mr. Oakly, the nurseryman, was apt to take offence at trifles; and when he thought that any of his neighbours disobliged him, he was too proud to ask them to explain their conduct; therefore he was often mistaken in his judgment of them. He thought that it showed SPIRIT, to remember and to resent an injury; and, therefore, though he was not an ill-natured man, he was sometimes led, by this mistaken idea of SPIRIT, to do ill-natured things: "A warm friend and a bitter enemy," was one of his maxims, and he had many more enemies than friends. He was not very rich, but he was proud; and his favourite proverb was, "Better live in spite than in pity."

When first he settled near Mr. Grant, the gardener, he felt inclined to dislike him, because he was told that Mr. Grant was a Scotchman, and he had a prejudice against Scotchmen; all of whom he believed to be cunning and avaricious, because he had once been over-reached by a Scotch peddler. Grant's friendly manners in some degree conquered this prepossession but still he secretly suspected that THIS CIVILITY, as he said, "was all show, and that he was not, nor could not, being a Scotchman, be such a hearty friend as a true-born Englishman."

Grant had some remarkably fine raspberries. The fruit was so large, as to be quite a curiosity. When it was in season, many strangers came from the neighbouring town, which was a sea-bathing place, to look at these raspberries, which obtained the name of Brobdingnag raspberries.

"How came you, pray, neighbour Grant, if a man may ask, by these wonderful fine raspberries?" said Mr. Oakly, one evening, to the gardener.

"That's a secret," replied Grant, with an arch smile.

"Oh, in case it's a secret, I've no more to say; for I never meddle with any man's secrets that he does not choose to trust me with. But I wish, neighbour Grant, you would put down that book. You are always poring over some book or another when a man comes to see you, which is not, according to my notions (being a plain, UNLARNED Englishman bred and born), so civil and neighbourly as might be."

Mr. Grant hastily shut his book, but remarked, with a shrewd glance at his son, that it was in that book he found his Brobdingnag raspberries.

"You are pleased to be pleasant upon them that have not the luck to be as book-LARNED as yourself, Mr. Grant; but I take it, being only a plain spoken Englishman, as I observed afore, that one is to the full as like to find a raspberry in one's garden as in one's book, Mr. Grant."

Grant, observing that his neighbour spoke rather in a surly tone, did not contradict him; being well versed in the Bible, he knew that "A soft word turneth away wrath," and he answered, in a good humoured voice, "I hear, neighbour Oakly, you are likely to make a great deal of money of your nursery this year. Here's to the health of you and yours, not forgetting the seedling larches, which I see are coming on finely."

"Thank ye, neighbour, kindly; the larches are coming on tolerably well, that's certain; and here's to your good health, Mr. Grant--you and yours, not forgetting your, what dye call 'em raspberries"--(drinks)--and, after a pause, resumes, "I'm not apt to be a beggar, neighbour, but if you could give me--"

Here Mr. Oakly was interrupted by the entrance of some strangers, and he did finish making his request--Mr. Oakly was not, as he said of himself, apt to ask favours, and nothing but Grant's cordiality could have conquered his prejudices, so far as to tempt him to ask a favour from a Scotchman. He was going to have asked for some of the Brobdingnag raspberry-plants. The next day the thought of the raspberry-plants recurred to his memory, but being a bashful man, he did not like to go himself on purpose to make his request, and he desired his wife, who was just setting out to market, to call at Grant's gate, and, if he was at work in his garden, to ask him for a few plants of his raspberries.

The answer which Oakly's wife brought to him was that Mr. Grant had not a raspberry-plant in the world to give him, and that if he had ever so many, he would not give one away, except to his own son.

Oakly flew into a passion when he received such a message, declared it was just such a mean, shabby trick as might have been expected from a Scotchman--called himself a booby, a dupe, and a blockhead, for ever having trusted to the civil speeches of a Scotchman--swore that he would die in the parish workhouse before he would ever ask another favour, be it ever so small, from a Scotchman; related to his wife, for the hundredth time, the way in which he had been taken in by the Scotch peddler ten years ago, and concluded by forswearing all further intercourse with Mr. Grant, and all belonging to him.

"Son Arthur," said he, addressing himself to the boy, who just then came in from work--"Son Arthur, do you hear me? let me never again see you with Grant's son."

"With Maurice, father?"

"With Maurice Grant, I say; I forbid you from this day and hour forward to have anything to do with him."

"Oh, why, dear father?"

"Ask no questions but do as I bid you."

Arthur burst out a crying, and only said, "Yes, father, I'll do as you bid me, to be sure."

"Why now, what does the boy cry for? Is there no other boy, simpleton, think you, to play with, but this Scotchman's son! I'll find out another play-fellow for ye, child, if that be all."

"That's not all, father," said Arthur, trying to stop himself from sobbing; "but the thing is, I shall never have such another play-fellow,- -I shall never have such another friend as Maurice Grant."

"Like father like son--you may think yourself well off to have done with him."

"Done with him! Oh, father, and shall I never go again to work in his garden, and may not he come to mine?"

"No," replied Oakly, sturdily; "his father has used me uncivil, and no man shall use me uncivil twice. I say no. Wife, sweep up this hearth. Boy, don't take on like a fool; but eat thy bacon and greens, and let's hear no more of Maurice Grant."

Arthur promised to obey his father. He only begged that he might once more speak to Maurice, and tell him that it was by his father's orders he acted. This request was granted; but when Arthur further begged to know what reason he might give for this separation, his father refused to tell his reasons. The two friends took leave of one another very sorrowfully.

Mr. Grant, when he heard of all this, endeavoured to discover what could have offended his neighbour; but all explanation was prevented by the obstinate silence of Oakly.

Now, the message which Grant really sent about the Brobdingnag raspberries was somewhat different from that which Mr. Oakly received. The message was, that the raspberries were not Mr. Grant's; that therefore he had no right to give them away; that they belonged to his son Maurice, and that this was not the right time of year for planting them. This message had been unluckily misunderstood. Grant gave his answer to his wife; she to a Welsh servant-girl, who did not perfectly comprehend her mistress' broad Scotch; and she in her turn could not make herself intelligible to Mrs. Oakly, who hated the Welsh accent, and whose attention, when the servant-girl delivered the message, was principally engrossed by the management of her own horse. The horse, on which Mrs. Oakly rode this day being ill-broken, would not stand still quietly at the gate, and she was extremely impatient to receive her answer, and to ride on to market.

Oakly, when he had once resolved to dislike his neighbour Grant, could not long remain without finding out fresh causes of complaint. There was in Grant's garden a plum-tree, which was planted close to the loose stone wall that divided the garden from the nursery. The soil in which the plum tree was planted happened not to be quite so good as that which was on the opposite side of the wall, and the plum-tree had forced its way through the wall, and gradually had taken possession of the ground which it liked best.

Oakly thought the plum-tree, as it belonged to Mr. Grant, had no right to make its appearance on his ground: an attorney told him that he might oblige Grant to cut it down; but Mr. Grant refused to cut down his plum- tree at the attorney's desire, and the attorney persuaded Oakly to go to law about the business, and the lawsuit went on for some months.

The attorney, at the end of this time, came to Oakly with a demand for money to carry on his suit, assuring him that, in a short time, it would be determined in his favour. Oakly paid his attorney ten golden guineas, remarked that it was a great sum for him to pay, and that nothing but the love of justice could make him persevere in this lawsuit about a bit of ground, "which, after all," said he, "is not worth twopence. The plum- tree does me little or no damage, but I don't like to be imposed upon by a Scotchman."

The attorney saw and took advantage of Oakly's prejudice against the natives of Scotland; and he persuaded him, that to show the SPIRIT of a true-born Englishman it was necessary, whatever it might cost him, to persist in this law suit.

It was soon after this conversation with the attorney that Mr. Oakly walked, with resolute steps, towards the plum-tree, saying to himself, "If it cost me a hundred pounds I will not let this cunning Scotchman get the better of me."

Arthur interrupted his father's reverie, by pointing to a book and some young plants which lay upon the wall. "I fancy, father," said he, "those things are for you, for there is a little note directed to you, in Maurice's handwriting. Shall I bring it to you?"

"Yes, let me read it, child, since I must." It contained these words:

"DEAR MR. OAKLY,--I don't know why you have quarrelled with us; I am very sorry for it. But though you are angry with me, I am not angry with you. I hope you will not refuse some of my Brobdingnag raspberry-plants, which you asked for a great while ago, when we were all good friends. It was not the right time of the year to plant them, which was the reason they were not sent to you; but it is just the right time to plant them now; and I send you the book, in which you will find the reason why we always put seaweed ashes about their roots; and I have got some seaweed ashes for you. You will find the ashes in the flower-pot upon the wall. I have never spoken to Arthur, nor he to me, since you bid us not. So, wishing your Brobdingnag raspberries may turn out as well as ours, and longing to be all friends again, I am, with love to dear Arthur and self,

"Your affectionate neighbour's son,
"MAURICE GRANT.

"P.S.--It is now about four months since the quarrel began, and that is a very long while."

A great part of the effect of this letter was lost upon Oakly, because he was not very expert in reading writing, and it cost him much trouble to spell it and put it together. However, he seemed affected by it, and said, "I believe this Maurice loves you well enough, Arthur, and he seems a good sort of boy; but as to the raspberries, I believe all that he says about them is but an excuse; and, at anyrate, as I could not get 'em when I asked for them, I'll not have 'em now. Do you hear me, I say, Arthur? What are you reading there?"

Arthur was reading the page that was doubled down in the book, which Maurice had left along with the raspberry-plants upon the wall. Arthur read aloud as follows:--

(Monthly Magazine, Dec. '98, p. 421.)

"There is a sort of strawberry cultivated at Jersey, which is almost covered with seaweed in the winter, in like manner as many plants in England are with litter from the stable. These strawberries are usually of the largeness of a middle-sized apricot, and the flavour is particularly grateful. In Jersey and Guernsey, situate scarcely one degree farther south than Cornwall, all kinds of fruit, pulse, and vegetables are produced in their seasons a fortnight or three weeks sooner than in England, even on the southern shores; and snow will scarcely remain twenty-four hours on the earth. Although this may be attributed to these islands being surrounded with a salt, and consequently a moist atmosphere, yet the ashes (seaweed ashes) made use of as manure, may also have their portion of influence."*

*It is necessary to observe that this experiment has never been actually tried upon raspberry-plants.

"And here," continued Arthur, "is something written with a pencil, on a slip of paper, and it is Maurice's writing. I will read it to you.

"'When I read in this book what is said about the strawberries growing as large as apricots, after they had been covered over with seaweed, I thought that perhaps seaweed ashes might be good for my father's raspberries; and I asked him if he would give me leave to try them. He gave me leave, and I went directly and gathered together some seaweed that had been cast on shore; and I dried it, and burned it, and then I manured the raspberries with it, and the year afterwards the raspberries grew to the size that you have seen. Now, the reason I tell you this is, first, that you may know how to manage your raspberries, and next, because I remember you looked very grave, as if you were not pleased with my father, Mr. Grant, when he told you that the way by which he came by his Brobdingnag raspberries was a secret. Perhaps this was the thing that has made you so angry with us all; for you never have come to see father since that evening. Now I have told you all I know; and so I hope you will not be angry with us any longer.'"

Mr. Oakly was much pleased by this openness, and said, "Why now, Arthur, this is something like, this is telling one the thing one wants to know, without fine speeches. This is like an Englishman more than a Scotchman. Pray, Arthur, do you know whether your friend Maurice was born in England or in Scotland?"

"No, indeed, sir, I don't know--I never asked--I did not think it signified. All I know is, that wherever he was born, he is VERY good. Look, papa, my tulip is blowing."

"Upon my word," said his father, "this will be a beautiful tulip!"

"It was given to me by Maurice."

"And did you give him nothing for it?" was the father's inquiry.

"Nothing in the world; and he gave it to me just at the time when he had good cause to be angry with me, just when I had broken his bell-glass."

"I have a great mind to let you play together again," said Arthur's father.

"Oh, if you would," cried Arthur, clapping his hands, "how happy we should be! Do you know, father, I have often sat for an hour at a time up in that crab-tree, looking at Maurice at work in his garden, and wishing that I was at work with him."

Here Arthur was interrupted by the attorney, who came to ask Mr. Oakly some question about the lawsuit concerning the plum-tree. Oakly showed him Maurice's letter; and to Arthur's extreme astonishment, the attorney had no sooner read it, than he exclaimed, "What an artful little gentleman this is! I never, in the course of all my practice, met with anything better. Why, this is the most cunning letter I ever read."

"Where's the cunning?" said Oakly, and he put on his spectacles.

"My good sir, don't you see, that all this stuff about Brobdingnag raspberries is to ward off your suit about the plum-tree? They know-- that is, Mr. Grant, who is sharp enough, knows--that he will be worsted in that suit; that he must, in short, pay you a good round sum for damages, if it goes on--"

"Damages!" said Oakly, staring round him at the plum-tree; "but I don't know what you mean. I mean nothing but what's honest. I don't mean to ask for any good round sum; for the plum-tree has done me no great harm by coming into my garden; but only I don't choose it should come there without my leave."

"Well, well," said the attorney, "I understand all that; but what I want to make you, Mr. Oakly, understand, is, that this Grant and his son only want to make up matters with you, and prevent the thing's coming to a fair trial, by sending on, in this underhand sort of way, a bribe of a few raspberries."

"A bribe!" exclaimed Oakly, "I never took a bribe, and I never will"; and, with sudden indignation, he pulled the raspberry plants from the ground in which Arthur was planting them; and he threw them over the wall into Grant's garden.

Maurice had put his tulip, which was beginning to blow, in a flower-pot, on the top of the wall, in hopes that his friend Arthur would see it from day to day. Alas! he knew not in what a dangerous situation he had placed it. One of his own Brobdingnag raspberry-plants, swung by the angry arm of Oakly, struck off the head of his precious tulip! Arthur, who was full of the thought of convincing his father that the attorney was mistaken in his judgment of poor Maurice, did not observe the fall of the tulip.

The next day, when Maurice saw his raspberry-plants scattered upon the ground, and his favourite tulip broken, he was in much astonishment, and, for some moments, angry; but anger, with him, never lasted long. He was convinced that all this must be owing to some accident or mistake. He could not believe that anyone could be so malicious as to injure him on purpose--"And even if they did all this on purpose to vex me," said he to himself, "the best thing I can do, is, not to let it vex me. Forgive and forget." This temper of mind Maurice was more happy in enjoying than he could have been made, without it, by the possession of all the tulips in Holland.

Tulips were, at this time, things of great consequence in the estimation of the country several miles round where Maurice and Arthur lived. There was a florist's feast to be held at the neighbouring town, at which a prize of a handsome set of gardening-tools was to be given to the person who could produce the finest flower of its kind. A tulip was the flower which was thought the finest the preceding year, and consequently numbers of people afterwards endeavoured to procure tulip-roots, in hopes of obtaining the prize this year. Arthur's tulip was beautiful. As he examined it from day to day, and every day thought it improving, he longed to thank his friend Maurice for it; and he often mounted into his crab-tree, to look into Maurice's garden, in hopes of seeing his tulip also in full bloom and beauty. He never could see it.

The day of the florist's feast arrived, and Oakly went with his son and the fine tulip to the place of meeting. It was on a spacious bowling- green. All the flowers of various sorts were ranged upon a terrace at the upper end of the bowling-green; and, amongst all this gay variety, the tulip which Maurice had given to Arthur appeared conspicuously beautiful. To the owner of this tulip the prize was adjudged; and, as the handsome garden-tools were delivered to Arthur, he heard a well known voice wish him joy. He turned, looked about him, and saw his friend Maurice.

"But, Maurice, where is your own tulip?" said Mr. Oakly; "I thought, Arthur, you told me that he kept one for himself."

"So I did," said Maurice; "but somebody (I suppose by accident) broke it."

"Somebody! who?" cried Arthur and Mr. Oakly at once.

"Somebody who threw the raspberry-plants back again over the wall," replied Maurice.

"That was me--that somebody was me," said Oakly. "I scorn to deny it; but I did not intend to break your tulip, Maurice."

"Dear Maurice," said Arthur--"you know I may call him dear Maurice--now you are by, papa; here are all the garden-tools; take them, and welcome."

"Not one of them," said Maurice, drawing back.

"Offer them to the father--offer them to Mr. Grant," whispered Oakly; "he'll take them, I'll answer for it."

Mr. Oakly was mistaken: the father would not accept of the tools. Mr. Oakly stood surprised--"Certainly," said he to himself, "this cannot be such a miser as I took him for"; and he walked immediately up to Grant, and bluntly said to him, "Mr. Grant, your son has behaved very handsomely to my son; and you seem to be glad of it."

"To be sure I am," said Grant

"Which," continued Oakly, "gives me a better opinion of you than ever I had before--I mean, than ever I had since the day you sent me the shabby answer about those foolish, what d'ye call em, cursed raspberries."

"What shabby answer?" said Grant, with surprise; and Oakly repeated exactly the message which he received; and Grant declared that he never sent any such message. He repeated exactly the answer which he really sent, and Oakly immediately stretched out his hand to him, saying "I believe you: no more need be said. I'm only sorry I did not ask you about this four months ago; and so I should have done if you had not been a Scotchman. Till now, I never rightly liked a Scotchman. We may thank this good little fellow," continued he, turning to Maurice, "for our coming at last to a right understanding. There was no holding out against his good nature. I'm sure, from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry I broke his tulip. Shake hands, boys; I'm glad to see you, Arthur, look so happy again, and hope Mr. Grant will forgive--"

"Oh, forgive and forget," said Grant and his son at the same moment. And from this time forward the two families lived in friendship with each other.

Oakly laughed at his own folly, in having been persuaded to go to law about the plum-tree; and he, in process of time, so completely conquered his early prejudice against Scotchmen, that he and Grant became partners in business. Mr. Grant's book-LARNING and knowledge of arithmetic he found highly useful to him; and he, on his side, possessed a great many active, good qualities, which became serviceable to his partner.

The two boys rejoiced in this family union; and Arthur often declared that they owed all their happiness to Maurice's favourite maxim, "Forgive and Forget."

[The end]
Maria Edgeworth's short story: Forgive And Forget

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN