papä and me, and yoû looked qüite beautiful." Edward then listened in expectation of the Button continuing his story, but it was ended, and his voice was gone.

19. THE LAMB.

There was once a little Lamb, with curly wool as white as snow, and a little black ring round its neck. You can't think how pretty it was! This little Lamb was in the field with its mother and a great many other sheep and lambṣ.

The sun was shining brightly, and the sky was very blue; the birds were singing in the trees, and the flowers were out in the fields and hedgeș, for it waṣ a beautifül morning in May.

The little Lamb felt so happy. It frisked and leaped about, and shook its pretty white ears and its long white tail; it chased the other lambs round the wood, that looked sō blue with the hyacinths, and ōver the brook, where the cowslips nodded their yellow heads to the tiny flowers that peeped up at them out of the grass.

The Lamb thought it never could bē tīred of play; but when the sun was high and it grew very hot, because the Breeze was weary of blowing, and had gone to sleep behind the hill, the little Lamb's mother câlled it, and bade it lie down in the grass and rest awhile. Now, though the Lamb loved dearly to lie at its mother's side, and rest against

her woolly coat, it felt sadly vexed to leave its play just then, and very, very slowly it came at the mother's câll, and then stood still a little way off.

The mother could see that it was in a bad temper, sō she did not speak to it again.

The little Lamb had run about until it was quite hungry, but instead of going to its mother to be fed, it pretended to eat grass like an old sheep, and went on nibbling away and kneeling down to reach it better, though, really, it could not eat a bit.

Presently the pouting little Lamb was going to nip off a little green button among the grass, when a voice cried softly,-"Take care! take care! don't bite off my buds!"

The Lamb stopped to see what it could bē, and found it was a Daisy with fōur little green budș.

"Pray don't bite off my buds just because you are vexed," said the ōld Daisy again; "they will soon blow into pretty white flowers in the wârm sunshine. Pray don't, little Lamb!"

"Very well, I won't," said the Lamb. "I don't want to hurt yoû. But what is the use when the buds do come out? They can't run about and bē merry. They will always have to stay just where they are in the field."

"Oh, yes," said the Daisy; "I know that, of course; but they will be aș contented and happy as their sisters were last year. They could have told yoû some pleasant stories about the sunrise, when the dew-drops look so bright and clear; and about the

beautifül rainbow that only comes out in the showers. They were very happy, I can tell ÿoû.”

"But could they tell any stories about the night?" said the Lamb. "I like to hear about the night.”

"No, no," said the old Daisy; "their stories are not about the night. They shut their eyes and gō to sleep when the sun sets, like good, obedient children; there is not one that would peep out after that."

The Lamb began to wonder if the Daisy had seen how naughty it was when its mother câlled it from play, but it only said, "I wonder why one must âlways be obedient! I wonder if some things mayn't do just as they like!"

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'No, indeed!" said the Daisy, and she looked very grave; "it would not be safe for them at all. But you can go and see for yourself.”

"Good bye," said the Lamb.

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'Good bye," said the Daisy, and watched quietly by her little buds; the white petals with rōṣy tips were just peeping out of the tight green cap. Think how pretty they would be when they were fülly blown!

The Lamb went on until it came to a pond in a corner of the field, and there it saw a brood of Ducklings swimming about merrily; they were covered with soft, yellow down-for their feathers were not grōwn ÿet—and their black eyes sparkled like beads. Every now and then they popped down their heads in the water to take a drink, and sometimes they

caught flies on the plants that floated in the pond. A Hen was basking in the sun, and dusting herself on the bank close by.

"Oh, I dare say the Ducklings may do as they like," said the Lamb; "I dare say they go where they please, quite to the other side of the pond. They don't look as if they would mind thē ōld Hen a bit."

Just at that very moment the Hen gave a loud cry to câll the Ducklings out of the wâter. Oh, how they scrambled up the bank, and spread their odd little short wings, that they might run to her the faster! and how they pressed about her to hide under her strong wings! And well it was for the ducklings that they were so obedient, for there was a awk high in the air above them, and if one had stayed behind hē would mōst surely have pounced down and have carried it off in his shärp claws to his nest among the rocks, and there the young hawks would have torn it in pieces and eaten it.

The Lamb couldn't help seeing that it was a good thing to be obedient, and while it stood thinking about it, it heard a noise of galloping and neighing, and snorting in the next field, that it was hälf frightened; but it soon peeped through a hole in the hedge, and then it saw a young Colt prancing about in great delight. There was nothing else in the field, and the Cōlt might scamper about till night, if he pleased-sō the little Lamb thought.

When the Cōlt caught sight of something white

through the gap in the hedge, hē cāme running up to see if it was anything alīve, or only a great bunch of hawthorn blossoms.

"What do you wânt, little Lamb?" said the Cōlt; and he put his head over the hedge.

"Oh," said the Lamb, "I'm only looking at ÿoû, and wondering if you are allowed to gallop about âll Where is your day long, even when it's hot.

mother?"

"My mother!" said the Cōlt, "I used to be with her when I was a little foal, but now I am old and strong I stay in the field by myself, and do as I like."

And the Colt püt his head down to the ground, and kicked up his heels in the air and frolicked about.

The Lamb began to think the Daisy only knew about very young things, and thought it would gō and tell her about the Cōlt; but just then a man cāme into the field with a great whip in his hand. When he cracked the whip the little Lamb qüite trembled, it sounded sō dreadfül.

The man went up to the Cōlt and caught him, and put a bridle on him and a bit into his mouth (the Lamb did not like to see thē īron bit püt into his mouth at âll), and then hē māde him gallop round and round in a wide cîrcle, and he taught him to canter and to trot, to stop and gō on when he was tōld, and sometimes he struck him with the whip; and at last, when the exercise was finished, the man patted his neck, and said, "You will soon be a useful, obedient horse, I see," and then he went away.