other fairy stories would seem
dull and commonplace, yet these marvels were all true. By studying
that book a man could become wiser than the wisest of philosophers,
and see more than the greatest of travellers, and yet remain as simple
as a little child. It would take a long time to tell you even a few of
the wonders which this book held between its dark covers. One of them
was, that if Oscar was in any trouble, he had but to open his book,
and the pictures would show him how the trouble was to be overcome.
Every pain that he could suffer, and every difficulty that he could
meet, had been met and suffered by his father long before; so that by
seeing what his father had done, he learned what was the best thing to
do himself. For Oscar was like his father, though he was but a little
boy.

The other thing that the dining-room contained was a large crystal
vase, which stood in the window. It had seven sides, and was so large
round that Oscar could not make his arms meet about it. It was filled
with the purest water, and at the bottom were sand and pebbles, and
delicate seaweeds, red and green, and pieces of rock covered with
curious mosses and tinted lichens. It was like a little sea, only that
there were no living animals in it. But under the shadow of one of the
rocks lay a large pearl shell, which Oscar fancied must hold some
living thing, although, often as he had watched it, it had never yet
moved or opened. But the boy had faith and patience, and every new day
he went to the vase, in the hope that now at last something might have
come from the pearl shell. It lay quiet, however, and kept its secret
to itself. It must certainly be a pleasant secret, Oscar thought, for
the shell was exquisitely curved, and its pearly sides shone with a
delicate lustre. And the more he pondered over the matter, the surer
he became that the vase must have been given for the sake of the
shell, and that by-and-by the shell would show why it was there.
Sometimes he felt tempted to take it out of the water, and try whether
he could see inside of it. But he could never quite bring himself to
do this, because, though the vase and the shell were his own, he felt
that they had been given to him to look at, and not to meddle with. In
his book, too, he saw that the night always comes before the morning,
and the winter before the spring; and though he did not understand why
that should be so--why the morning should not begin just after the sun
had