ts of wealthy London is standing by the
baker's window, and gazing at the crisp loaves, with no more chance to
eat one of them than you have. He is worse off than you. You have
other food--plenty of it--he has none; and, moreover, his hunger is
rendered more acute and painful by the sight of the tempting food--
separated from his hand only by a pane of glass. Poor boy! that pane of
glass is to him a wall of adamant. Think upon this, my son, and learn
to be contented.'

"`Indeed, I am so, mamma,' replied Harry, with a look of contrition. `I
did not mean to complain. I was only thinking how nice it would be to
have bread, now that we have got both sugar and coffee.'

"`Ah! now, my good Harry,' said his mother, `since I find you in the
proper spirit, I think I must tell you about another curious and useful
tree, of which, perhaps, you have not heard.'

"`A bread-fruit now, I'm sure? No, it cannot be that; for I _have_
heard of the bread-fruit.'

"`Still, it might very appropriately be called a bread-fruit, since,
during the long winter months, it furnishes bread to many tribes of
Indians; indeed, not bread alone, but subsistence--as it is the only
food these improvident people have.'

"`I am sure I have never heard of that tree.'

"`Well, I imagine not, as it is not long since it was discovered and
described by botanists; and even now it is but imperfectly known to
them. It is a pine.'

"`What! a pine with fruit?'

"`Did you ever see a pine without it--that is, in the proper season?'

"`Then you call those cone-shaped things fruit?'

"`Certainly; what else should they be?'

"`Oh! I thought those were the seed.'

"`So are they, and the fruit as well. In botany we have no such word as
fruit. What you call fruit is in some trees the seed. In all species
of nuts, for instance, the fruit and the seed are one and the same
thing--that is to say, the kernel of the nut is both fruit and seed. So
it is with leguminous plants, as beans and peas. In other trees,
however, the fruit is a substance covering and enclosing the seed, as
the pulp of the apple, the pear, and the orange. Now, with regard to
the pines, they are nut-bearing trees, and their seed is at the same
time their fruit.'

"`But, mamma, you do not mean that any one could eat those rough things
that grow upon pine-trees?'

"`Those rough things you speak of are the cones. They are only the
sheaths that protect the seeds during a certain per