the leaves. It is a useful plant.'

[Illustration: Lettuce.]

5. After tea, mother took some cress-seed and mustard-seed out of two
little packets. Then she cut up one or two corks, put them into a deep
plate, filled it with water, and sprinkled seed on the cork.

6. 'This is for you, Harry,' she said. 'You will soon have a little crop
of mustard and cress. And here is one for Dora!'

In Dora's plate she laid a bit of flannel, poured water on it, and sowed
seed. The children carried off their plates to a safe place, and thought
it would be fine fun to see roots and leaves come out of the tiny seeds.

7. Then mother called them into the garden to see her parsley. She told
them that hares and rabbits would come a long way to feed on a
parsley-bed if they could get at it.

8. Close by grew mint, sage, and thyme. 'All these are herbs,' she said.
'They are not like trees, are they?'

'No; they have no bark, no hard wood, and they are so small.'

[Illustration: Leaves of Mint, Parsley, Thyme, and Sage.]

9. Dora picked a mint-leaf, a parsley-leaf, a thyme-leaf, and a
sage-leaf, and laid them side by side. She wanted to see if they were
like each other. But when she looked at them she found that they were
not alike.

COFFEE.

cof'-fee
beans
kneel'-ing
chair
win'-dow
bus'-y
stock'-ings
ket'-tle
rat'-tled
coun'-try
cher'-ry
to-geth'-er
blos'-som
cov'-ered
cloths
ber'-ries

1. 'What is coffee, mother dear? Does it grow?'

2. It was Dora who asked this. She and Harry were putting away some
things that had come from the shop, and she was now filling a tin with
coffee-beans.

3. She was kneeling on a chair by the table in the window. Her mother
was busy mending stockings, and the cat and the dog were both asleep.
The kettle was singing, and all was cosy.

4. The coffee-beans rattled into the tin, and Dora picked one out and
looked at it.

When Harry heard Dora asking about it, he also put his hand in and took
a coffee-bean. It smelt very nice, he thought. So did Dora.

5. They found that it had a flat side and a round side.

'It humps up,' said Dora.

'See, I can put the flat side of mine against the flat side of yours,'
said Harry.

'They grew like that,' said mother.

'Oh, then, they did grow? They were alive once?'

[Illustration: Coffee branch with Berries.]

6. 'Yes; they were seeds of a plant that grows in a warm