can _use_ it in so many ways, that it
continues to afford her pleasure for a long time. She can dress and
undress it, put it to bed, make it sit up for company, and do a great
many other things with it. When she gets tired of playing with it one
day, she puts it away, and the next day she thinks of something new to
do with it, which she never thought of before. Now, which should you
think the pleasure you should obtain from a ball, would arise from, its
_novelty_, or its _use_?"

"Its _use_," said the boys.

"Yes," said the mother. "The first sight of a ball would not give you
any very special pleasure. Its value would consist in the pleasure you
would take in playing with it.

"Now, it is generally best to buy such playthings as you can use a great
many times, and in a great many ways; such as a top, a ball, a knife, a
wheelbarrow. But things that please you only by their _novelty_, will
soon lose all their power to give you pleasure, and be good for nothing
to you. Such, for instance, as jumping men, and witches, and funny
little images. Children are very often deceived in buying their
playthings; for those things which please by their novelty only, usually
please them very much for a few minutes, while they are in the shop,
and see them for the first time; while those things which would last a
long time, do not give them much pleasure at first.

"There is another kind of playthings I want to tell you about a little,
and then my lecture will be done. I mean playthings which give _you_
pleasure, but give _other persons_ pain. A drum and a whistle, for
example, are disagreeable to other persons; and children, therefore,
ought not to choose them, unless they have a place to go to, to play
with them, which will be out of hearing. I have known boys to buy masks
to frighten other children with, and bows and arrows, which sometimes
are the means of putting out children's eyes. So you must consider, when
you are choosing playthings, first, whether the pleasure they will give
you will be from the _novelty_ or the _use_; and, secondly, whether, in
giving _you_ pleasure, they will give _any other persons_ pain.

"This is the end of the lecture. Now you may rest a little, and look
about, and then I will tell you a short story."

THE YOUNG DRIVERS.

They came, about this time, to the foot of a long hill, and Jonas said
he believed that he would get out and walk up, and he said James might
drive the horse. So he put