Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/42

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34
AGNES GREY.

"Papa says they do harm."

"And what do you do with them, when you catch them?"

"Different things. Sometimes I give them to the cat; sometimes I cut them in pieces with my penknife; but the next, I mean to roast alive."

"And why do you mean to do such a horrible thing?"

"For two reasons; first, to see how long it will live—and then, to see what it will taste like."

"But don't you know it is extremely wicked to do such things? Remember, the birds can feel as well as you, and think, how would you ike it yourself?"

"Oh, that's nothing! I'm not a bird, and I can't feel what I do to them."

"But you will have to feel it sometime, Tom—you have heard where wicked people go to when they die; and if you don't leave off torturing innocent birds, remember, you will have to go there, and suffer just what you have made them suffer."

"Oh; pooh! I shan't. Papa knows how I treat them, and he never blames me for it; he says it's just what he used to do when he