heard in the word _gentle_.

21. The same rule which you have just learnt with regard to the letter
_c_ applies to the letter _g_. It has its hard sound before _a_, _o_,
and _u_, and its soft sound before _e_, _i_, and _y_.

22. There are, it is true, some words where this rule is not applied;
but these words are very few, so that you may safely follow this rule in
most words.

23. The letters _ph_ are sounded like _f_. The letters _ch_ are sounded
sometimes like _k_, as in the words _loch_ and _monarch_, and sometimes
like _sh_, as in the words _chaise_ and _charade_; and they have
sometimes a sound which cannot be represented by any other letters, as
in the words _charm_ and _chance_.

24. I suppose that you have probably learned most of these things which
I have now told you in your spelling-book; but I have repeated them in
this book, because I have so often found that little boys and girls are
very apt to forget what they have learned.

25. If you recollect them all, it will do you no harm to read them
again, but it will impress them more deeply on your memory. But if you
have forgotten them, this little book will recall them to your mind, so
that you will never forget them.

26. I recollect, when I was a little boy, that the letter _y_ used to
trouble me very much when it began a word, and was not followed by one
of the letters which are called vowels, namely, _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_.
I knew how to pronounce _ya_, _ye_, _yi_, _yo_, _yu_; but one day, when
I was studying a lesson in geography, I saw a word which was spelt _Y,
p, r, e, s_, which puzzled me very much.

27. I knew that the letters _p, r, e, s_, would spell _pres_, but I did
not know what to call the _y_. After studying it a long time, I found
that the letter _y_, in that word and some others, was to be pronounced
like the long _e_, and that the word was pronounced _Epres_, though it
was spelled _Y, p, r, e, s_.

28. Perhaps you will be able, when you grow up, to write a book; and to
tell little boys and girls who go to school, when you have grown up, how
to read hard words, better than I have told you.

29. If you wish to do so, you must try to recollect what puzzles you
most now, and then you will be able to inform them how to get over their
difficulties and troubles at school; and when they grow up, I have no
doubt that they will feel very grateful to you for the assistance you
have given them.

LESSON XVI.

_Fire,[A]--a Convers