“Come, George! come, my little son,” said Mrs. Hope to her sleeping boy, one bright morning in June, laying her hand upon him, and endeavouring to awake him.

George roused up for a moment, and then fell off again to sleep. He felt heavy and dull.

“Come, George!” urged his mother, again disturbing him. “Emily is up and dressed for a walk. And the sun is up, too.”

This time the little boy opened his eyes, rubbed them, stretched himself, half arose from his pillow and then sunk down again and went to sleep.

“A little more sleep and a little more slumber,” said Mrs. Hope, smiling. “Ah, George! I’m afraid you will be a sad sluggard. Come! come! this will never do!” and she shook him harder than before.

“Don’t you see, George, that your sister is all dressed, and that the sun is streaming in at the window?” she continued, as her boy started up quickly. “Come, be quick now, or every bright dew-drop will be kissed from the leaves and blossoms before we can get into the fields.”

“I don’t care about going, mother,” replied George, sinking back upon his pillow. “You and Emily can go this time. To-morrow morning I will go with you.”

“And to-morrow morning you will feel just as dull and sluggish as you do now. No, no, George; now is the time. So, come, rouse yourself up, and don’t keep us waiting for you any longer.”

As the mother said this, she lifted her little boy from his bed, and, seating him on her lap, first of all washed his face in a basin of cool, clean water. This made him as bright as a new shilling. In a little while he was all ready for the walk; and then mother, George, and Emily, accompanied with gay little Fido, who went barking before them, started off for their morning walk.

“An’t you glad, now, that you got up to go with us, George?” asked Emily, as they tripped along, and drank in the pure morning air.

“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t be in that warm bed, feeling as dull as I did, for anything. I’m so glad that mother made me get up.”

“It was because I knew what was best for you, my son, that I made you get up. I knew that the fresh morning air would not only be good for you, but that when you once breathed it, and exercised in it, you would feel like a new person.”

“Oh, see that beautiful butterfly!” Emily exclaimed, pausing near a sweet-briar bush, upon one of the delicate blossoms of which reposed a large butterfly, with wings glowing in colours the richest and most varied, gently fanning the pure air.

“Shall I catch it, mother?” eagerly asked George, taking off his cap, and beginning to move stealthily towards the sweet-briar bush.

“No, my child,” said Mrs. Hope, laying her hand gently on the boy’s arm, and detaining him.

“But, mother, it is such a beautiful one, I should like to take it home and shew it to father.”

“And what do you think your father would say, if you were to take him that gay insect?”

“He would call it very pretty, I am sure, and say I was a good boy for bringing it to him.”

“No, George,” replied his mother. “He would more probably say,—‘George, my dear boy, I am grieved that you have crushed, and soiled, and hurt this pretty creature. See, how the beautiful colours have already faded from its wings! See, how it droops in my hand, unable to fly as it did a little while ago from flower to flower, a gay and happy thing. You were wrong, my dear boy, to have touched so delicate a creature, born only for the sunshine and the flowers, and too fragile to be handled by anything ruder than a summer breeze.’”

“But I won’t hurt it, mother.”

“You could not possibly touch it, my dear, without hurting the delicate thing. Your little fingers, that to my hands are soft and smooth, would be so rough to the wings of a butterfly, as to rasp off the rich painting that adorns them, and even to crush their delicate frame-work. And I am sure my boy would not wish to hurt any of God’s creatures.”

“Oh, no, mother! I wouldn’t hurt that butterfly for the world. But see, it has risen up from the flower, and now away it goes, floating along like a pretty blossom with wings. And there goes Fido, barking after it. Foolish dog! You can’t catch the pretty butterfly.”

“See, mother, here is a bee, right in the middle of this large flower,” said George, looking up into his mother’s face with a glow of pleasure upon his own. “He is getting honey, is he not?”

“Yes, dear. The bee is a very industrious little creature, and when the blossoms are out he is up with the sun, and works all through the day, busily engaged in procuring honey for his winter’s store. You never find him asleep after the sun is risen, as my little boy was this morning.”

“But then, mother,” said George, as they all walked on, and left the bee and the sweet-briar bush, “I don’t have to gather honey as the bee does. I am a little boy, and don’t have to work to lay up bread in the winter.”

“Can’t you teach your brother a better lesson than that, Emily?” said Mrs. Hope, turning to her little girl. “Don’t you remember the talk we had yesterday about the use of learning, and how necessary it was for us, like the bee in spring and summer, to lay up a store of knowledge in our minds, against the winter of old age?”

“O, yes, mother, I remember that I said, just as George did just now, that it wasn’t as necessary for me to work as the bee, for I had kind parents who provided everything for me. And then you told me that I had been made very different from the bee; that the bee had not a mind as I had; and, therefore, that it only required food to supply the natural wants of its body, which food it industriously obtained and stored up in the season when it could be found. You then told me that I had a spiritual body as well as a natural body, and that my spiritual body required food as well as my natural body; that to learn about everything that my parents and teachers wished me to learn about, was the way to store up food for this spiritual body, which would require more and more food, the older I grew; and that, at last, when I became very old—when the winter of life came, I would not be able to store up food as in early life, but would have to live upon that already laid by.”

By this time the mother and her children had extended their morning walk as far as was intended, and then they turned their steps towards home. In passing the sweet-briar bush, the bee and the butterfly were recalled to the minds of the children; and George said, that whenever he passed that bush he should remember that his fingers were too rough for a butterfly’s wings; and that, like the bee, he must diligently store up food for the mind, in early years, that he might have a full supply when the winter of old age should come upon him.

At the breakfast table they met their father, and George told him all about what they had seen, and what their mother had said to them, and how determined he was to be like the diligent bee.

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