es, Godfather Gilpin's
house-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind that
blows nobody good."

It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day on
which I had had the shelf in which all the books were alike. They were
all foreigners--Italians--and all their names were _Goldoni_, and there
were forty-seven of them, and they were all in white and gold. I could
not read any of them, but there were lots of pictures, only I did not
know what the stories were about. So next day, when Godfather Gilpin
gave me leave to play a Sunday game with the books, I thought I would
have English ones, and big ones, for a change, for the _Goldonis_ were
rather small.

We played at church, and I was the parson, and Godfather Gilpin was the
old gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes to
sleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were the
congregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some of
them were thin, like real people--not like the _Goldonis_, which were
all alike.

I was arranging them in their places and looking at their names, when I
saw that one of them was called Taylor's _Sermons_, and I thought I
would keep that one out and preach a real sermon out of it when I had
read prayers. Of course I had to do the responses as well as "Dearly
beloved brethren" and those things, and I had to sing the hymns too, for
the books could not do anything, and Godfather Gilpin was asleep.

When I had finished the service I stood behind a chair that was full of
newspapers, for a pulpit, and I lifted up Taylor's _Sermons_, and rested
it against the chair, and began to look to see what I would preach. It
was an old book, bound in brown leather, and ornamented with gold, with
a picture of a man in a black gown and a round black cap and a white
collar in the beginning; and there was a list of all the sermons with
their names and the texts. I read it through, to see which sounded the
most interesting, and I didn't care much for any of them. However, the
last but one was called "A Funeral Sermon, preached at the Obsequies of
the Right Honourable the Countess of Carbery;" and I wondered what
obsequies were, and who the Countess of Carbery was, and I thought I
would preach that sermon and try to find out.

There was a very long text, and it was not a very easy one. It was:
"For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which
cannot be gathered up a