ariety of objects in the room, such as are calculated to
interest and please the little listener.

It is the pleasurable exercise of some dawning faculty or faculties acting
through embryo organs of the brain, by which the mind can picture to
itself, more or less vividly, unreal scenes, which is the source of the
enjoyment in such cases as this.

A child may be still more interested, perhaps, by imaginary conversations
of this kind with pictures of animals, and by varying the form of them in
such a way as to call a new set of mental faculties into play; as, for
example,

"Here is a picture of a squirrel. I'll ask him where he lives. 'Bunny!
bunny! stop a minute; I want to speak to you. I want you to tell me where
you live.--I live in my hole.--Where is your hole?--It is under that big
log that you see back in the woods.' Yes" (speaking now to the child), "I
see the log. Do you see it? Touch it with your finger. Yes, that must be
it. But I don't see any hole. 'Bunny' (assuming now the tone of speaking
again to the squirrel), 'I don't see your hole.--No, I did not mean that
any body should see it. I made it in a hidden place in the ground, so as
to have it out of sight.--I wish I could see it, and I wish more that I
could look down into it and see what is there. What is there _in_ your
hole, bunny?--My nest is there, and my little bunnies.--How many little
bunnies have you got?'"--And so on, to any extent that you desire.

It is obvious that conversations of this kind may be made the means of
conveying, indirectly, a great deal of instruction to young children on a
great variety of subjects; and lessons of duty may be inculcated thus in a
very effective manner, and by a method which is at the same time easy and
agreeable for the mother, and extremely attractive to the child.

This may seem a very simple thing, and it is really very simple; but any
mother who has never resorted to this method of amusing and instructing her
child will be surprised to find what an easy and inexhaustible resource for
her it may become. Children are always coming to ask for stories, and the
mother often has no story at hand, and her mind is too much preoccupied to
invent one. Here is a ready resort in every such emergency.

"Very well," replies the mother to such a request, "I'll tell you a story;
but I must have a picture to my story. Find me a picture in some book."

The child brings a picture, no matter what. There is no possible pictu