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think he might have tried the experiment as well without killing the bird. He should have taken it out, when he saw it gasping for breath, as I am sure he did before it died. And he should have let it recover. in the fresh air."

'Certainly," said Harry, "it was cruel, as you say, to kill the bird, because it was unnecessary. But, except that mistake was not it a good experiment?"

She admitted that it was a good experiment; but she observed, that the lungs of birds and of human creatures are different, and she thought it not quite a certain proof, that because a bird cannot live in such or such air, that therefore it must necessarily be unwholesome for human creatures. Her mother, to whom she appealed, thought this was true, and so did Harry.

"How much we have had to say and think of, from what passed to-day," said Lucy. "And how many curious facts and entertaining stories we heard in conversation, though we were so vexed at being

interrupted when the visitors first came in!"

"Yes," said Harry, "I thought of that; and thought how right my father was, in telling me, that we may often learn as much from conversation as from books."

A BOATING party was proposed by Mr. Frankland, on the third and last day of their visit, and Harry and Lucy were invited to be of this party, at which they much rejoiced. They had never been in any boat. This had not a sail, it was to be rowed with oars. They walked down to the side of the river, which ran through the grounds, and they found the boat in a little creek, moored to a post in the bank. Lucy thought it a little dangerous to walk over the board that was laid from the land to the edge of the boat. One of the boatmen would have taken her by the arm, but as she saw Harry walk on fearlessly, she followed without assistance. They were desired to sit down as soon as they were in

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the boat, and something was said about trimming it. How, or why, a boat was to be trimmed, Lucy could not guess, and she was curious to see what would happen. Nothing happened, but that every body sat still in their places, except one of the men who was to row, and who, sticking his oar against the ground, pushed off from the shore. Then crossing over Lucy's head with his oar, and bluntly saying, "By your leave, Miss," he succeeded in getting the boat out of the little creek, in which it had been moored.

Now they were fairly out in the river, and all the boatmen began to row, excepting one, who sat at the end of the boat, watching the way it was going, and guiding it by means of the rudder or helm, of which he held the great handle under his arm.

After they had rowed a little way this man made one of his companions change places with another, who was much heavier; and then seeming satisfied, said, "She is well trimmed now." Lucy per

ceived that she meant the boat, and now understood, that by trimmed, he meant that the weight on each side of the boat was balanced.

All was new and amusing to Lucy; she listened to the sound of the oars, and watched the sparkling drops, hanging from their edges, as the men lifted them from the water. They raised them out of the water, not edgeways, but with the flat part, or blade, horizontal, as you would raise a spoonful of any liquid. The use of this, as Harry perceived, was to diminish the resistance of the air against the oars, as they were moved forward, in order to replunge them in the water.

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His father told him, that this motion is called "feathering the oars."

"Now I understand," said Lucy, "that verse in the song of the jolly young waterman, which used to sing, papa:"

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"Did you not hear of a jolly young waterman, Who at Blackfriars used for to ply?

He feather'd his oars with such skill and dexterity, Winning each heart and delighting each eye."

As they rowed along, they saw a pretty villa on the banks of the river. Lucy suddenly started up in the boat, and asked Harry if he should not like to live in that beautiful place, with the gay veranda.”

"Sit still, my dear," said her mother; "for if you overturn the boat, you will never live anywhere."

Effectually quieted by this suggestion, Lucy sat down instantly, and quite still, silently enjoying the fineness of the day, and the pretty prospect of houses, gardens, parks, and woods, as they rowed on, and observing the reflection of the trees and buildings in the clear river. A bird, with white out-spread wings, was skimming over the water, which Lucy wanted Harry to see; but he, close at his father's elbow, was intent on hearing what Mr. Frankland was saying of some foreigners, who had lately been at his house, in the course of a tour they were making through England. He had taken them out boating; and in going down this part of the river they had been particularly

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