9.  ’The next thing is to mix it well into a paste, and then it is put into moulds.’

‘What are moulds?’ Harry asked.

‘Well, these moulds are like boxes with no bottom or top.’

‘Only sides, then?’ said Dora.

10.  ’Yes, they have two long sides, and two short ones, and they hold the soft, wet clay.

’You may call them clay-puddings before they are put into the hot oven.  When they are taken out, what do you think they are?  They are bricks!’

[Illustration]

A DONKEY.

[Illustration]

bot’-tom lane don’-key load fruit this’-tles hedge rough ap-ple car’-rot touch mor’-row feast win’-dow shag’-gy tuft

1.  At the bottom of the lane lived a donkey.  Harry and Dora knew him well.  They often met him going to town with a load of fruit, and they saw him in the lane every day cropping the grass and thistles by the hedge-side.

2.  He knew them, too, for they would stop to pat his rough sides, or give him an apple or a carrot.

3.  They wondered how he could eat such prickly things as thistles.  A horse would never touch them.

4.  One day his master took him into the garden while he was working.  He let Neddy go up and down the paths and crop the grass, which had grown long on the little grass-plot.

5.  The donkey did not once try to get at the pears and apples; he did not even look at them.

6.  His master was pleased, and said to his wife:  ’It is quite safe to leave the gate open, and let Neddy come into the garden when he likes.  I shall be away to-morrow, but you need not look after him.  He will be all right.’

7.  Next day, Neddy walked into the garden, found that no one was there, and began to eat the fruit.  He had a good feast before his mistress saw him from the window.

8.  Then he was driven out, and the gate was shut.  After that he always had to find his dinner in the lane.

9.  The children saw him one day feeding with a white horse that had come down from the farm, and they stopped to talk to them.

10.  Then Dora said to Harry: 

‘They are like each other, and yet not like!  Neddy has a shaggy coat.’

‘And his mane is short, and stands up.’

‘His ears are very long.’

’His tail is not like Snowflake’s tail; and, see, it has a little tuft at the end of it!’

‘And Snowflake is much taller.’

SHEEP.

chalk wheth’-er earth hedge tear’-ing swal’-low chew’-ing though re-mem’-ber for-got’-ten brought mouth

1.  The next time that Dora and Harry were out, they ran up to the place where they had met Joe.  They wished to see how the chalk was getting on, and whether the earth was brown yet.

2.  After that they went over a stile into a field where many sheep were feeding.  The sheep began to move away when they saw the boy and girl coming.