the decorations which
adorned it, I do not know that Jennie enjoyed it any more than she did a
little seat that she had under some lilac bushes, near the brook at the
bottom of her father's garden, at home.

There was a small couch in the recess of the window in Jennie's boudoir;
and here she and Rollo established themselves, with the Bible lying open
before them upon a small table which they had placed before the couch to
hold it. They raised their own seats by means of large, square cushions
which were there, so as to bring themselves to the right height for
reading from the book while it lay upon the table; and they put their
feet upon a tabouret which belonged to the room. The tabouret was made
for a seat, but it answered an admirable purpose for a foot-stool. As
soon as the two children were thus comfortably established, they opened
the Bible, and Rollo began to turn over the leaves in the books of
Samuel and of Kings, in order to find something which he thought would
interest Jennie.

At length he found a chapter which seemed, so far as he could judge by
running his eye along the verses, to consist principally of narration
and dialogue; and so he determined to begin the reading at once.

"Now," said he, "Jennie, I will read one verse, and then you shall read
one, and I will tell you the meaning of all the words that you don't
know."

Jennie was much pleased with this arrangement, and she read the verses
which came to her with great propriety. It is true that there were a
great many words at which she was obliged to hesitate some little time
before she could pronounce them; and there were others which she could
not pronounce at all. Rollo had the tact to wait just long enough in
these cases. By telling children too quick when they are endeavoring to
spell out a word, we deprive them of the pleasure of surmounting the
difficulty themselves; and, by waiting too long, we perplex and
discourage them. There are very few children who, when they are hearing
their younger brothers and sisters read, have the proper discretion on
this point. In fact, a great many full-grown teachers fail in this
respect most seriously, and make the business of reading on the part of
their pupils a constant source of disappointment and vexation to them,
when it might have been a pleasure.

Rollo, too, besides the patient and kind encouragement which he afforded
to Jane in her attempts to read her verses herself, read those which
fell to