I saw you all so busy with straws when I came back from playing. But now, Lucy, to go to another thing, for we have said enough about this- did you observe the old gentleman who sat in the armchair by the fireside ?”

"The same gentleman, who, the first day at dinner, talked of Wedgwood's ware, and of vegetable pie dishes?" said Lucy. "Yes, I saw him, indeed. He took a great quantity of snuff, and I could not bear-"

"What?"

"It. Oh horrible, Harry!-his pocket handkerchief-"

"I did not see it," said Harry.

"I am glad of it," said Lucy. “I do not like him."

"You do not like him! my dear. I asasure you," said Harry, "he is a very sensible man; for I heard him talking to my father and Mr. Frankland about stoves, and flues, and fire places, and hot air."

Very likely," said Lucy; "but I wish

that he had not had those two great streaks of snuff along the wrinkles of his waistcoat."

ར "Never mind that," said Harry; "I want to tell you something entertaining he told me."

66

Well, do then, I would rather hear it from you than from him," said Lucy. "I hope, Harry, you will never take snuff.” "No, no, my dear; no danger."

"But when you grow old, my dear, great danger. So many old people do, and young too. too. Now I will tell you the names of all the snuff takers I know."

66

"No, no, no! my dear Lucy," said Harry, stopping his ears, pray do not; but let me tell you about a little bird."

"A little bird-oh! that is another affair- I thought you were going only to tell me about stoves. What about a little bird?"

"It was about stoves too," said Harry; you must hear that, before you come to the bird. Do you recollect, some one

said, that there was a disagreeable smell from a stove in the passage.'

"Yes," said Lucy, "and the people began to debate whether it was a smell of smoke or of burnt air."

"Then it was, that my old gentleman asked if they knew what is meant by burnt air, and he began and told of a doctor* somebody, who tried some experiments to determine whether heated iron gives out any thing unwholesome to air, that passes over it, or whether it takes any thing away from it, so as to make it, in short, unfit for our breathing."

"So he took a bird, I suppose," said Lucy.

"Stay, stay; first he took a small cube of iron, and heated it to a great heat: I am sorry I forget the degree," said Harry. "Never mind," said Lucy, "get on to the bird."

"And he put it into an exhausted receiver,” said Harry.

* Dr. Desaguliers.

"The bird?" said Lucy.

66

No, my dear, the cube of iron. I wish I had never told you about the bird."

"Well, well, I will not be bird-witted," said Lucy. "Papa, you know, told me, I was bird-witted once: but, Harry, I beg your pardon. Now, tell me; he took a small cube of iron, and he put it into an exhausted receiver."

"Yes," said Harry; "he placed the cube of iron so that whenever he let in air, it should all pass through a hole in the hot iron."

"You never told me of any hole in the hot iron," said Lucy.

"There I was wrong," said Harry; "I should have told you, that he had made a hole through the iron cube; then he let the air into the receiver, and it passed through and over the heated iron; and when this receiver was filled with this air, he put a little bird into it, and it breathed the air without seeming to be in the least

hurt, or showing that he felt any difference between it and fresh air."

"But the bird could not speak," said Lucy; "and we are not sure it liked it."

"Not sure, certainly," said Harry; "but now listen to the next experiment, and you will find what happened. The man made the same experiment with a cube of the same size of heated brass, and put the same bird in the same receiver, after it had been again exhausted, and filled with air which had passed through and over heated brass."

"Well," said Lucy, "and what happened?"

"The bird died," said Harry, "in a few minutes."

"Poor bird!" said Lucy.

"The man was very cruel; I mean the experiment was cruel."

"No," said Harry, "because he tried the experiment for a good purpose, to save the lives and health of human creatures." "That was good," said Lucy; "but I