WHILE they were eating the breakfast which their mother gave them, Harry asked his sister what she had been doing the day before, when he was out with his father; and Lucy told him all she had seen in the dairy, and when she was out a walking. When they had done breakfast, his mother lent Harry one of Mrs. Barbauld's little books for children, and let him read the story of the poor Blind Fiddler, with which Harry was very much pleased; and then she let Lucy read the following story.

A MAN, riding near the town of Reading, saw a little chimney-sweeper lying in the dirt, who seemed to be in great pain; and he asked him what was the matter; and the chimney-sweeper said that he had fallen down, and broken his arm, and hurt his leg, so that he was not able to walk and the man, who was very good-natured, got off his horse, and put the chimney-sweeper upon it, and walked beside the horse, and held the boy on till he came to Reading; and when he came to Reading, he put the boy under the care of an old woman whom he knew there, and he paid a surgeon for setting his arm, and gave the woman money for the trouble which she would have in taking care of the boy, and the expense which she would be at in feeding him, till he should be able to work again to earn money for himself; and then the man continued his journey till he got to his own house, which was at a great distance. The boy soon got well, and earned his bread by sweeping chimneys at Reading.

SEVERAL years after that time, this same good-natured man was riding through Reading, and his horse took fright upon a bridge, and jumped, with the man upon his back, into the water; the man could not swim, and the people who were on the bridge, and saw him tumble in, were afraid to jump into the water to pull him out; but, just as he was ready to sink, a chimneysweeper who was going by saw him, and, without stoping a moment, threw himself into the river, and, seizing hold of him, dragged him out of the water, and saved

him from being drowned: and when the man was safe upon the bank, and was going to thank the person who had pulled him out of the water, he recollected that it was the same chimney-sweeper whom he had taken care of several years before, and who had hazarded his own life to save that of his benefactor.

WHEN Lucy had done reading, her mother asked Harry which he liked best, the man who had taken care of the chimney-sweeper whom he did not know, or the chimney-sweeper who had saved the life of the man whom he knew, and who had taken care of him when his arm was broken.

Harry said he liked the chimney-sweeper best, because he was grateful, and because he ventured his own life to save that of the man who had been kind to him: but Lucy said she liked the other man the best, because he was humane, and took care of a poor little boy who had nobody to take care of him, and from whom he could never expect to receive any benefit.

THIS is the history of Harry and Lucy for two days. The next Part will be the history of another day, when Harry and Lucy were a year older.

HARRY AND LUCY.

PART II.

AFTER the summer was past, and after the autumn and winter were past, another spring came.

Harry and Lucy were now each of them a year older. And during the year that had passed, they were become taller and stronger, and had learned a great many things that they did not know before.

They had learned to read fluently; and they were therefore able to entertain themselves a little during the winter's evenings, with reading short stories in books which their mamma gave them; and they had learned a little arithmetic, and could cast up sums in addition, and subtract.

And they had each of them a little garden. Harry dug the ground when it was necessary, and Lucy pulled up weeds, and helped to wheel them away in her little wheelbarrow; and assisted in sowing seeds of different sorts, and in planting the roots of flowers.

In the summer she and Harry carried water to water the plants and flowers which they had set and sown in the spring. And they had not only planted flowers, and sown small salad, but Harry had also a crop of peas and a crop of potatoes in his garden; for his father had seen that he was industrious, and for that reason he gave him a piece of good ground to be added to his garden; and as it had been grass-ground for some time, it was so hard that Harry was not able to dig it. But his father had it dug roughly for him, and he had a cartload of dung laid upon it. Harry had observed very attentively how his father's labourers had set potatoes; and in the beginning of the month of February he dug his ground over again, and marked it out into ridges, with stakes and a line, and spread the dung upon the ridges, leaving sufficient space between the ridges for the furrows. He then cut some potatoes which his father had given him into small pieces, to plant in the ground for sets. He took care to cut them so that

each piece should have an eye in it: that is to say, that each piece should have one of those little black spots in it which contain the root of the potato; for after the piece of potato has been some time in the ground, it rots away, and the root unfolds, and long fibres spread into the earth.

He scattered these pieces upon the dung, at eight or ten inches from each other; and then he dug earth out of the furrows that lay between the ridges, and covered the bits of potato and the dung with them, laying earth over them both to the depth of three or four inches.

When he had made any mistake, or had not done the work well, his father assisted him, and showed him how to do it better.

The rain in the following spring, and the heat of the sun in the beginning of summer, had contributed to the growth of Harry's crop, and in the middle of June he had some fine young potatoes fit to eat.

About this time of the year the weather is generally very hot; and one day, as Harry and his sister were sit ting under the shady tree which was mentioned in the former chapter, picking some cowslips for their mamma, Harry observed that the shadow of the tree reached almost round the stem; and he had seen in the morning, when he was at breakfast, that the shadow of the tree fell only at one side of it. He asked his father, who was passing by, the reason of this; and his father took him to the door of the house, and desired him to look where the sun was; and he saw that it was opposite the door, and very high in the sky. "Take notice, Harry, where you see the sun now, and observe where you see it this evening when the sun is setting."

Harry said he knew where the sun set-that he could not see it from the hall door; but that he could see it from that end of the house which was at the right hand of the hall door as you go out.

Father. Did you ever observe where it rises?

Harry. Yes; it rose this morning at the other end of the house.

Father. It did so. Now do you know where are the south, and the north, and the east, and the west?

Harry. No: but I believe the side of the sky where the sun rises is called the east.

Father. It is so; and the side where it sets is called the west. Now you may always know the south and the

north, wherever you are, if you know where the sun either rises or sets. If you know where it rises, stand with your left hand towards that part of the sky, and then the part of the sky before your face will be the south, and that part of the sky behind your back will be the north.

In the same manner, if you know where the sun sets, turn your right hand towards that place, and the part of the sky opposite to you will be the south. But, Harry, you must remember that there are only two days in the year when the sun sets exactly in the west, and it rises exactly in the east.

Harry. What days are those, papa?

Father. It would be of no use to you to know the names of those days; but when one of them comes I will let you know it. On that day the sun rises exactly at six o'clock in the morning, and sets exactly at six o'clock in the evening.

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Papa," said Harry, "I have observed several times that my shadow in the morning and in the evening is very long, but in the middle of the day I can scarcely see my shadow."

Father. You must think about it yourself, Harry; for if I tell you every thing that you want to know, without your taking the trouble to think, you will not have the habit of thinking for yourself; and without being able to think for yourself, you will never have good sense.

THE bricks which Harry and Lucy had made the year before, had all been melted away (as the workmen say) by the rain, or broken because they had not been burnt; but Harry had dug some tough yellow clay of a proper sort in the month of November, before the usual frosts of the winter had begun and Harry mixed it well with the spade, and Lucy picked out the little pebbles with a small paddle, and the frost made the clay mellow, as the workmen call it. And in the spring Harry made nearly six hundred bricks, and built them into stacks, and covered them with turf, which his father had let him pare off the surface of the ground. And Harry's father, who had been much pleased with his good behaviour and industry, came to the tree where he was at work, and asked him if he would like to go to the brickfield, to see how