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Book, page 461 / 462 trembling hands. The marked guinea appeared. His master instantly turned him out of his service with strong expressions of contempt. "And now, my little honest girl," said the gentleman who had admired her brother's scotcher, turning to Anne, "and now tell me who you are, and what you and your brother want or wish for most in the world." In the same moment Anne and Paul exclaimed, "The thing we wish for the most in the world is a blanket for our grandmother." "She is not our grandmother in reality, I believe, sir," said Paul; "but she is just as good to us, and taught me to read, and taught Anne to knit, and taught us both that we should be honest--so she has; and I wish she had a new blanket before next winter, to keep her from the cold and the rheumatism. She had the rheumatism sadly last winter, sir; and there is a blanket in this street that would be just the thing for her." "She shall have it, then; and," continued the gentleman, "I will do something more for you. Do you like to be employed or to be idle best?" "We like to have something to do always, if we could, sir," said Paul; "but we are forced to be idle sometimes, because grandmother has not always things for us to do that we CAN do well." "Should you like to learn how to make such baskets as these?" said the gentleman, pointing to one of the Dunstable straw-baskets. "Oh, very much!" said Paul. "Very much!" said Anne. "Then I should like to teach you how to make them," said the basket- woman; "for I'm sure of one thing, that you'd behave honestly to me." The gentleman put a guinea into the good natured basket-woman's hand, and told her that he knew she could not afford to teach them her trade for nothing. "I shall come through Dunstable again in a few months," added he; "and I hope to see that you and your scholars are going on well. If I find that they are, I will do something more for you." "But," said Anne, "we must tell all this to grandmother, and ask her about it; and I'm afraid--though I'm very happy--that it is getting very late, and that we should not stay here any longer."
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