comes."

"Very true and proper, Master Frank," replied Mrs. Crabtree; "you speak
like a printed book sometimes, and you deserve a good wife."

"Then I shall return home some day with chests of gold, and let you
choose one for me, as quiet and good-natured as yourself, Mrs.
Crabtree," said Frank, taking up his books and hastening off to school,
running all the way, as he was rather late, and Mr. Lexicon, the master,
had promised a grand prize for the boy who came most punctually to his
lessons, which everybody declared that Frank was sure to gain, as he had
never once been absent at the right moment.

Major Graham often tried to teaze Frank, by calling him "the
Professor,"--asking him questions which it was impossible to answer,
and then pretending to be quite shocked at his ignorance; but no one
ever saw the young scholar put out of temper by those tricks and trials,
for he always laughed more heartily than any one else, at the joke.

"Now show me, Frank," said uncle David, one morning, "how do you advance
three steps backwards?"

"That is quite impossible, unless you turn me into a crab."

"Tell me, then, which is the principal town in Caffraria?"

"Is there any town there? I do not recollect it."

"Then so much the worse!--how are you ever to get through life without
knowing the chief town in Caffraria! I am quite ashamed of your
ignorance. Now let us try a little arithmetic! Open the door of your
understanding and tell me, when wheat is six shillings a bushel, what is
the price of a penny loaf. Take your slate and calculate that."

"Yes, uncle David, if you will find out, when gooseberries are two
shillings the pint, what is the price of a threepenny tart. You remind
me of my old nursery song--

'The man in the wilderness asked me,
How many strawberries grew in the sea;
I answered him, as I thought it good,
As many red herrings as grew in the wood.'"

Some days after Laura had distributed the biscuits, she became very
sorry for having squandered her shilling, without attending to Lady
Harriet's good advice, about keeping it carefully in her pocket for at
least a week, to see what would happen. A very pleasant way of using
money now fell in her way, but she had been a foolish spendthrift, so
her pockets were empty, when she most wished them to be full. Harry came
that morning after breakfast into the nursery, looking in a great
bustle, and whispering to Laura, "What a pity your sixpence is gone!