"
4. Now, they all had been told to keep away from the ditch at the bottom
of the field; but, notwithstanding this injunction, one little urchin,
of the name of Jarvis, seeing a flower in the hedge on the opposite
bank, which he wished to gather, crept nearer and nearer to the ditch.
5. The closer he got to the flower, the more beautiful it appeared to
be, and the stronger the temptation became to pluck it.
6. Now, what right had he to put himself in the way of temptation? The
field, as I said before, was covered over with flowers; and that in the
hedge was no better than the rest, only it was a forbidden flower, and
when anything is forbidden it becomes, on that very account, a greater
temptation to a disobedient heart.
7. Jarvis had gathered a whole handful of flowers before he saw the one
growing in the hedge; but he threw all these away, so much was his mind
set on getting the one which he wanted.
8. Unluckily for him, in getting down the bank, his foot slipped, and
down he rolled into a bed of stinging nettles, at the bottom of the
ditch, which fortunately happened to have in it but little water.
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