she said, she had a reason for this, and he left her to take her own time to tell it, which did not happen this stage.

"HARRY! do you remember, that the old gentleman told us last night," said Lucy, "that we should be surprised, before this day's journey should be over?"

"So he did," said Harry; "but I have been so happy all day, that I never thought of it till this minute."

"I have been very happy too," said Lucy, "but I have thought of it sometimes. And now that dinner is over, and that evening is coming on, it is time to think about it. I wonder, Harry, what it can be."

Lucy was standing in the parlour of the inn, where they had dined, and she looked all round the room, and then out of the window, as she spoke.

"There is nothing surprising here I

am sure," said she.

"But I heard papa

order, that the horses should not be put to yet, not for two hours. What can be the reason of that, Harry?"

"We are to walk through some park, near this town, I believe," said Harry, "and the carriage is to meet us at the farthest gate, and we are to see some house. Come! Come Lucy! Papa is calling to us to follow him."

Lucy followed with great alacrity, certain that they were now going to be surprised. But they walked up an avenue of beech trees, and reached the house without meeting with any thing surprising; and Lucy was disappointed, when she found that her father and mother came to this house only to look at some pictures. Neither Harry nor Lucy had yet any taste for pictures, and their mother therefore advised them to divert themselves by running about the pleasure grounds, which amusement they were permitted to enjoy, upon her answer

ing for them, that they would not touch any of the flowers or shrubs. First they went through all the flower gardens, then through the park, and by the river side, and up again through a wood on the banks, till the red light of sun-set, which they saw on the stems of the trees, warned them to return from whence they came. They were afraid of being too late, and of keeping their father and mother waiting; but luckily they met the wood-ranger going home from his work, and he showed them a path, which took them the shortest way to the house. Instead of being too late, they found that they need not have run so fast, for their father and mother had not yet finished looking at the pictures.

"Let us sit down then, and cool ourselves quietly," said Lucy. "Harry, only think of papa and mamma having been all this long time, looking at pictures! How tired I should have been, if I had been standing all this while, with my neck bent back, staring up at them. Harry, do you

think, that when we grow up, and set out upon our travels, that we shall ever be so fond of pictures as to stand looking at them so long?"

66

Perhaps we may," said Harry, "though we do not care about them now. I remember some time ago, I never thought of looking at prints, except of machines; but ever since the day I saw the prints in Don Quixote, I have grown fond of them."

"Yes; and how happy we were together," said Lucy, "looking over the prints in Pyne's Microcosm."

"True, I forgot them," said Harry. "I always liked those, because they are so like things and people we see every day."

"And the prints in the Arabian tales,” said Lucy," though they are not like things we see every day, or any day, or that we can ever see in reality, you like those, do not you, Harry?"

"I do," said Harry, "some of them."

"Some of them," repeated Lucy. "Very right, so do I. Those that are like my ideas of what the sultans, and viziers, and Fatimas, and their turbans, and Coge Hassans might be. But some others I do not like, such as Aladdin's genius of the lamp, and the African magician, because they do not come up to my imagination of them. Harry, do describe to me your image of the African magician."

It was a difficult task, and Harry was glad to be relieved from it, by his father's calling to him, to desire he would see if the carriage was come to the park-gate. It was there waiting, and by the time they got into it, the sun was set, and it was growing dusk. By the time that they reached the end of the next stage, and had drank tea, it was quite dark. They were, however, to go on another stage this night. Lucy, who did not much like travelling in the dark, observed, as her mother was getting into the carriage, that the coach lamps were not lighted.