instead of bread-and-milk, I should soon be able to do all that grandpapa can.'

3. Then George waited for a good chance to try if he could be like his grandfather, and before long he found one. His grandfather one morning had to go and see a poor man at the door; and while he was away George put on his grandfather's velvet cap with fur round it, and a pair of spectacles that were lying on the table. Then he took a sip at his grandfather's coffee. Then he opened the newspaper that was lying upon the table. And then he tried to read it.

4. "I can now do all that grandpapa can do," said George.

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But he found that instead of being able to tell A from B, and C from D, he saw only lines that seemed to run into each other, so that he could see nothing plainly. Perhaps grandpapa does not look through his spectacles," said George. Then he looked over them and saw A and B and C clearly, but he could not spell the words any better than if he had no spectacles on.

6. As he sat looking very grave over it,

his grandfather came back.

you doing?" he asked.

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"What are

'I am trying to be big and read as well as you do," said George; "and I thought the coffee and spectacles would do it."

7. His grandfather laughed, and he said, "No, no, George, it will take more than that to make you a man. You will have to grow for a great many years yet; and you will have to learn words, and study every day till you can read the long words without spelling."

8. "I don't like lessons," said George; "I want to read, and not to do lessons."

"You cannot do anything without trouble," said his grandfather; 66 so the sooner you begin to take pains with your lessons the sooner you will read well."

9. George thought for a minute; he was a sensible boy, and so he said, "I will try.” And day after day George learned word after word, so that he knew them at first sight, and he soon found that it did not need grandpapa's spectacles to make him read the longest words very easily.

1. ONCE on a time a child was born, who was not bigger than one's thumb. But he was a very pretty boy, and as he was so

very

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little his father and mother called him Thumbling."

2. Every day they gave him all the food he could eat; still he did not grow a bit. But, if small, Thumbling was smart.

3. One morning his father was going into the woods, and said, "Now I wish I had some one who could follow me with the cart."

"O, father!" cried Thumbling, “I will bring the cart; it shall be there at the right time."

4. The father laughed, and said, "How can that be? You are too small to lead the horse by the bridle."

"Never mind that, father. I can sit in his ear, and tell him which way to take."

5. Well, when the hour came, his mother put the harness on the horse, and placed Thumbling in its ear, and told him how to guide it. Then he set out just like a man, and the cart went on the right road to the forest. When the horse was turning a corner, Thumbling would call out, "Steady, steady!"

6. Just then two strange men met the

horse and cart; and one said to the other, What can this be? Here comes a cart, and the driver keeps calling to the horse, but I can see no one." The other said, "Let us follow and see where the cart stops."

7. The cart went on to where Thumbling's father was cutting wood. As soon as Thumbling saw his father, he called to him,

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Here, father; here I am, you see, with the cart: just take me down." The father took his little son out of the horse's ear, and set him down merrily on a straw.

8. When the two men saw the little fellow, they thought, if they could buy Thumbling, they would make much money by showing him at fairs. So they asked Thumbling's father if he would sell his son. They said they would be very kind to him.

9. The father said that he would not sell his son for all the money in the world, because he loved him. But Thumbling climbed up on his father's shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Let me go now,