I accordingly placed myself in a convenient situation, and had not long to wait, for the moment they saw there was no one passing, they went up to the stall, the eldest walking alongside the other, apparently to prevent his being seen, whilst the little one snatched an orange, and conveyed it under his pinafore, with all the dexterity of an experienced thief.

The youngest of these children was not four years old, and the eldest, apparently, not above five.

There was reason to believe this was not the first time they had been guilty of stealing, though, perhaps, unknown to their parents, as I have found to be the case in other instances.
Another little boy in the school, whose mother kept a little shop, frequently brought money with him,--as much as three-pence at a time.
On questioning the child how he came by it, he always said that his mother gave it to him, and I thought there was no reason to doubt his word, for there was something so prepossessing in his appearance, that, at the time, I could not doubt the truth of his story.

But finding that the child spent a great deal of money in fruit, cakes, &c., and still had some remaining, I found it advisable to see the mother, and to my astonishment found it all a fiction, for she had not given him any, and we were both at a loss to conceive how he obtained it.

The child told _me_ his mother gave it to him; and he told his _mother_ that it was given to him at school; but when he was confronted with us both, not a word would he say.