drink before you go, and to-morrow you will get out of bed when you are called. I cannot have a lazy child.

CATCHING FIRE.

Mary. Have you heard about poor Ellen Graves? She is burnt almost to death. Sophy. How did it happen?

Mary. Her mother was gone out to work, and she found some matches in the closet, and thought she would play with them, and she dropped one on her frock.

Sophy. But could not she put it out?

Mary. She might, if she had not been in such a fright. She did not know what she did. She ran down-stairs into the street, screaming all the way, and when Mr. Jones, of the shop, wanted her to lie down, that he might put a rug over her to put out the flames, she fought him, and ran on.

Sophy. But what ought she to have done?

Mary. First, she ought not to have touched the matches, for she had been told not. When her frock caught fire, if she had thrown herself on the bed and pulled the clothes over her it would soon have put out the flames. Fire cannot burn without air. You know how a shovel of sand will smo-ther a fire, and how bellows, which make the air blow through the coals, helps them to burn, and you should try to

D

remember that flames spread upwards. If you take a bit of lighted paper, and hold it up-right, how fast it burns; but lay it flat on the floor, and it will go out.

THE CROSS OLD WOMAN.

NANNY WELSH sold fruit, and had a little stall at the corner of John Street, in Lulworth. She was old, and looked dirty, and certainly seemed cross; but then she had a good deal to make her so.

poor old of them One day ran off

The children in Lulworth-and there were swarms of them had no greater fun than saying something to provoke the woman, till she could not see one coming without beginning to scold. Tom Smith snatched up a pear and with it. He did not mean to rob her, but to frighten her for a joke. She grew very angry, and jumped up with her stick to catch him and to beat him; but in her hurry she upset her stall, and down in the mud (and it was very wet that day) rolled all her fruit-raspberries, cherries, pears, and apples.

A number of children came to see what had been the matter, and finding that Nanny Welsh had got all her fruit rolling about, they all cried out, "Serve her right, an old crosspatch," and danced round her, hurraing as if they were delighted. This made the old woman furious, and, I am afraid, she called them names she

ought not, and got more angry every minute. But one girl, Mary Wilson, quietly began to pick up the fruit and put it in a basket, till Nanny's stall could be set up again, telling the other children to go.

"It is only their fun, Nanny," she said, "but it is very wrong; only please don't scold them, it makes them worse."

At last the children left the old woman in peace.

It was about a month after this, that there was a feast at the school, and Farmer Tomkins had told the children that if his orchard was not robbed this summer, as it often had been, he would give them all the apples off a lovely tree that hung near the school-house. They were rosy large apples, and there would be one apiece at least. The baskets were brought into the school. The mistress said

"Now these are your own apples to do what you like with. You may eat them at once, if you please; but I want to remind you how unkindly you behaved to poor Nanny Welsh, and how ill she has been. And I feel sure that you are very sorry, now, that you tried to provoke her. I know you all said it served her right, because she was so cross; but, my dear children, if being served right meant being punished for our faults, which of you would escape? Do not give her any for the sake of pleasing me. I shall not inquire whether you do or not, but think of what is right; and now take your apples and go."

And they did take their apples, and when they got into the road, "What do you mean to do?" and "What do you mean to do?" was asked, and some said, "I shall eat mine; she is a horrid old woman," but others said, "Well, we did provoke her," and the end of the matter was that old Nanny was much surprised at receiving apples enough to cover her stall, and secure her a good dinner for some time to come.

"Well, there's some good in those children, after all," she said; "and sure I used to be very cross to them, poor things."

And from that time to this there has been peace kept between old Nanny and the children of Lulworth. Did ever a basket of apples do so much good as these?

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