"But Mrs. Smart, at our village shop, is running low in her stock of goods, and so she sends to the wholesale man for a supply of tea, raisins, candles, pepper, and I know not what other things besides, and amongst them, sugar. And you may go to-morrow, and see whether it is good, and buy an ounce of it, if you choose; and a pretty trouble it has been to get it. Let us see: here is

our basin, and

The planter has made a profit out of it,

and so have his laborers,

and the shipowner,

and the captain and sailors,

and the dock company,

and the merchant,

and the broker,

and the refiner,

and the wholesale grocer,

and the retail seller.

So that ten sets of men have made something out of that sugar basin that is on the table before you. I am not quite sure that anything Harris tells you to do in the nursery is harder than all this !"

I almost forget whether I got an answer.

"Papa, I don't think there could have been much trouble with the strawberries, for they were in a bed, and you have only to pick them."

"The bed is in a garden, is it not ?"

"Oh, yes."

"Not in the road, or on the open common?" "No."

"Then, I think we ought to take the garden into our thoughts, as well as the strawberry bed. You weren't exactly here, I believe, twelve years ago, when this house was built in the midst of some glebe fields, and the garden was laid out. But as, amongst other things, we wanted some strawberries, we thought it better to make a bed for them, than to plant them in the grass; and it seemed wiser to plant a hedge, and raise a wall and paling round all the garden, to keep out any cows and pigs that might hereafter be drawn that way, than just to dig a bed here and there. We put Brown at the head of it all, and he got together half-a-dozen men, and they dug and trenched, and burned the turf and clay, and laid down pipes to drain off the water, and carted stones, and bushes, and straw; so that the garden beneath was like a great filter; and then they brought manure and gravel; and dressed, and levelled, and laid it out, till it grew into the shape in which you now see it. Then came bricklayers and carpenters, and wagons full of trees and shrubs, and more things than I can tell you; and so, after some months of hard, downright labor, the garden was made.

"Brown then began to think of the strawberries; but as the plants will not bear fruit until they are three years' old, and his garden was not of three days, he was obliged to go to Mr. Mann, the nurseryman, who had planted,

and tended, and trimmed, and weeded his young strawberries for nearly three years, and now transferred them to Brown, who planted, and dressed, and kept up the stock ever since. If you ask him about his ideas of the trouble his beds give him, I fancy they will be very different from yours.

"But so it is through life. You can do nothing well without labor; and very often the things which seem accomplished with the most perfect ease are the fruit of the greatest pains and care. What a pleasing way Uncle George has. Everything he says and does seems so easy and natural, that you might almost think his manner was born with him. You would be astonished if you knew how he has watched over himself, and entered into other persons' feelings, and restrained his own, until the things you so like in him have become a part of himself. could not now be otherwise than he is.

He

"There is a proverb, that there is no royal road to knowledge; meaning, that it must be gained by slow and laborious steps, and that it is impossible to grow up a well-informed man without them. You are very fond of hearing stories. Just try to invent one on giraffes in Africa, or buffaloes in America, which you only know by pictures, or from seeing them in the Zoological Gardens ; and before you have got half through it, you will see that it is not only difficult, but untrue. No one can ever write or speak well, unless he is master of his subject, if he is either six years old, as you are, or sixty, as I hope you will be.

There

"It is just the same with other kinds of skill. are only two lines in nature- -a straight, and a curved or round one. Every line that is not straight must be round. Now, you can make a good straight line, and a passable round O; but if you were to take a pencil, and draw Harris's face with your present power over these two lines, I don't think she would be wholly satisfied with her picture. And yet every picture is in one or other of them. It would probably take you years of trouble and hard work before you could draw a correct likeness.

"Look at that cup and saucer before you. It may be worth a shilling, or perhaps less. It is very simple: a white ground, a few brown sprigs of laurel and berry, and a bar border round it, with a tiny gilt rim. How long would it take you to make one like it? A very long time, under the best instructors, I fear. Without instruction, you might grow an old man before you could form one in all respects precisely like it. Cups and saucers are common enough. I wonder whether you ever thought of the trouble there was in making them.

"No; there is nothing to be done without that word, and it is good for us all that it should so be. We should make a curious world of it if every one shrank from trouble, and gave himself up to indolence. You will always see those the happiest who exert themselves the most, and turn their labor into a means of pleasure. They will have a light heart and a cheerful spirit, and health of body as well as mind.

I SHOULDN'T HAVE THOUGHT IT.

"DEAR, dear, what a fuss about nothing! I wont

What is the matter, Willy, and what is it you wont

wear ?"

66

'Why, papa, Harris wants me to put on my plaid scarf, and I had rather not."

"Rather not.

Well, that is better than bouncing into the room, and stamping and tugging at it, as you were doing just now.”

"But, papa, it's such nonsense!"

"What! the bouncing and stamping? I fear that is rather worse than nonsense."

No, I did not mean that."

"Well, I suppose not; but your resistance to the scarf was quite as bad.”

"Was it, papa ?"

"Quite.

Sit down, and let us look into it. You were going out of doors, and Harris wished you to have it on to prevent your catching cold."

"But, papa, I should not catch cold, for I should run about."

"She wished to prevent your catching cold; and as