“Now, Harry,” added he, “you must not open a book till I allow you.”

“No poetry, either?” said poor Harry; and his face fell.

“I don’t mind poetry so much; but of prose I will read as much to you as will be good for you.  Come, let us have a bit of Gulliver again.”

“Oh, how delightful!” cried Harry.  “I am so glad you made me put away that tiresome book.  I wonder why it insisted so on being read.”

Hugh read for an hour, and then made Harry put on his cloak, notwithstanding the rain, which fell in a slow thoughtful spring shower.  Taking the boy again on his back, he carried him into the woods.  There he told him how the drops of wet sank into the ground, and then went running about through it in every direction, looking for seeds:  which were all thirsty little things, that wanted to grow, and could not, till a drop came and gave them drink.  And he told him how the rain-drops were made up in the skies, and then came down, like millions of angels, to do what they were told in the dark earth.  The good drops went into all the cellars and dungeons of the earth, to let out the imprisoned flowers.  And he told him how the seeds, when they had drunk the rain-drops, wanted another kind of drink next, which was much thinner and much stronger, but could not do them any good till they had drunk the rain first.

“What is that?” said Harry.  “I feel as if you were reading out of the Bible, Mr. Sutherland.”

“It is the sunlight,” answered his tutor.  “When a seed has drunk of the water, and is not thirsty any more, it wants to breathe next; and then the sun sends a long, small finger of fire down into the grave where the seed is lying; and it touches the seed, and something inside the seed begins to move instantly and to grow bigger and bigger, till it sends two green blades out of it into the earth, and through the earth into the air; and then it can breathe.  And then it sends roots down into the earth; and the roots keep drinking water, and the leaves keep breathing the air, and the sun keeps them alive and busy; and so a great tree grows up, and God looks at it, and says it is good.”

“Then they really are living things?” said Harry.

“Certainly.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sutherland.  I don’t think I shall dislike rain so much any more.”

Hugh took him next into the barn, where they found a great heap of straw.  Recalling his own boyish amusements, he made him put off his cloak, and help to make a tunnel into this heap.  Harry was delighted—­the straw was so nice, and bright, and dry, and clean.  They drew it out by handfuls, and thus excavated a round tunnel to the distance of six feet or so; when Hugh proceeded to more extended operations.  Before it was time to go to lunch, they had cleared half of a hollow sphere, six feet in diameter, out of the heart of the heap.

After lunch, for which Harry had been very unwilling to relinquish the straw hut, Hugh sent him to lie down for a while; when he fell fast asleep as before.  After he had left the room, Euphra said: