ome useful employ.

Although for transgression the ground was accursed,
Yet gratefully man must allow,
'Twas really a blessing which doom'd him at first,
To live by the sweat of his brow.

Nursery Rhymes.

"Thank you, a hundred times over, uncle David!" said Harry, when the
story was finished. "I shall take care not to be found hanging any day
on a hook in the larder! Certainly, Frank, you must have spent a month
with the good fairy; and I hope she will some day invite me to be made a
scholar of too, for Laura and I still belong to the No-book family."

"It is very important. Harry, to choose the best course from the
beginning," observed Lady Harriet. "Good or bad habits grow stronger and
stronger every minute, as if an additional string were tied on daily, to
keep us in the road where we walked the day before; so those who mistake
the path of duty at first, find hourly increasing difficulty in turning
round."

"But grandmama!" said Frank, "you have put up some finger-posts to
direct us right; and whenever I see 'no passage this way,' we shall
wheel about directly."

"As Mrs. Crabtree has not tapped at the door yet, I shall describe the
progress of a wise and a foolish man, to see which Harry and you would
prefer copying," replied Lady Harriet, smiling. "The fool begins, when
he is young, with hating lessons, lying long in bed, and spending all
his money on trash. Any books he will consent to read, are never about
what is true or important; but he wastes all his time and thoughts on
silly stories that never could have happened. Thus he neglects to learn
what was done, and thought, by all the great and good men who really
lived in former times, while even his Bible, if he has one, grows dusty
on the shelf. After so bad a beginning, he grows up with no useful or
interesting knowledge; therefore his whole talk is to describe his own
horses, his own dogs, his own guns, and his own exploits; boasting of
what a high wall his horse can leap over, the number of little birds he
can shoot in a day, and how many bottles of wine he can swallow without
tumbling under the table. Thus, 'glorying in his shame,' he thinks
himself a most wonderful person, not knowing that men are born to do
much better things than merely to find selfish pleasure and amusement
for themselves. Presently he grows old, gouty, and infirm--no longer
able to do such prodigious achievements; therefore now hi