Project Gutenberg's Pretty Tales for the Nursery, by Isabel Thompson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Pretty Tales for the Nursery

Author: Isabel Thompson

Illustrator: Sir John Gilbert

Release Date: May 14, 2008 [EBook #25469]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY TALES FOR THE NURSERY ***

Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was made using scans of public domain works in the
International Children's Digital Library.)

[Illustration: FANNY'S BIRTHDAY]

PRETTY TALES

FOR THE

NURSERY.

[Illustration]

LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:

Depositories:
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD; AND 164, PICCADILLY:
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS.

[Illustration: PRETTY TALES FOR THE NURSERY.]

FANNY'S BIRTHDAY.

Here is a nice new book! It is mine. Papa has just given it to me, for
this is my birth-day, and I am five years old. Oh, how pretty it is!
Here are boys and girls at play, like Willie and me; and here is nurse,
with baby on her knee.

They will call me a dunce if I do not learn to read well, so I will try
my very best; for what is the use of a nice book like this, if I cannot
read it? It is not of a bit more use than my wax doll would be to puss.

What, Miss Puss, you hear your own name, do you? and think we are going
to have a game of play. On no, puss, no such thing. It will not do for
me to mind only play, for mamma says that, if I live, I shall be a woman
in time, and there are many things that I must learn before then.

Look, puss, here is my new book. Ah, I see you do not care for books.
You like to lie on the warm rug before the fire, and there you sleep
away half your time. That may do very well for a puss, but it will not
do for me. If I am as idle as you, I shall grow up a dunce, and what
would papa say then? No, no, pussy, you may do as you like, but for my
part I am not going to be a dunce.

[Illustration]

Sometimes I sit upon mamma's knee, and she tells me the story about a
young king, who lived many years ago, and who loved the Bible better