olars kept their respective
rooms--how some were always in disorder, and every thing in them
topsy-turvy, so that they had no pleasant or home-like aspect at all; while
in others every thing was well arranged, and kept continually in that
condition, so as to give the whole room, to every one who entered it, a
very charming appearance.

"The books on their shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all
standing up in order--those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann, and go
to your shelves, and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to
show him what I mean."

Ann jumped down, and ran with great alacrity to arrange the books according
to the directions. When she had arranged one shelf, she was proceeding to
do the same with the next, but James said she need not do any more then.
She could arrange the others, if she pleased, at another time, he said.
"But come back now," he added, "and hear the rest of the advice."

"I advise you to keep your book-shelves in nice order at college," he
continued; "and so with your apparatus and your cabinet. For at college,
you see, you will perhaps have articles of philosophical apparatus, and a
cabinet of specimens, instead of playthings. I advise you, if you should
have such things, to keep them all nicely arranged upon their shelves."

Here James turned his chair a little, so that he and the children could
look towards the cabinet of playthings. Walter climbed down from his
cousin's lap and ran off to that side of the room, and there began hastily
to arrange the playthings.

"Yes," said James, "that is the way. But never mind that now. I think you
will know how to arrange your philosophical instruments and your cabinet
very nicely when you are in college; and you can keep your playthings in
order in your room here, while you are a boy, if you please. But come back
now and hear the rest of the advice."

So Walter came back and took his place again upon James's knee.

"And I advise you," continued James, "to take good care of your books when
you are in college. It is pleasanter, at the time, to use books that are
clean and nice, and then, besides, you will like to take your college books
with you, after you leave college, and keep them as long as you live, as
memorials of your early days, and you will value them a great deal more if
they are in good order."

Here Ann opened the book which was in her hand, and began to fold back the
dog's-ears and to smooth down