1. 'What is coffee, mother dear? Does it grow?'

2. It was Dora who asked this. She and Harry were putting away some things that had come from the shop, and she was now filling a tin with coffee-beans.

3. She was kneeling on a chair by the table in the window. Her mother was busy mending stockings, and the cat and the dog were both asleep. The kettle was singing, and all was cosy.

4. The coffee-beans rattled into the tin, and Dora picked one out and looked at it.

When Harry heard Dora asking about it, he also put his hand in and took a coffee-bean. It smelt very nice, he thought. So did Dora.

5. They found that it had a flat side and a round side.

'It humps up,' said Dora.

'See, I can put the flat side of mine against the flat side of yours,' said Harry.

'They grew like that,' said mother.

'Oh, then, they did grow? They were alive once?'

6. 'Yes; they were seeds of a plant that grows in a warm country, far away from here. They once lived inside a berry.

'The berry was red like a cherry, and the seeds inside were held together in a little bag.'

7. 'There must have been a flower before the berry came,' said Harry, thinking of the pea-flower and its pod.

'A very pretty white flower,' said his mother. 'They say that a coffee-garden looks lovely in blossom-time, just as if it were all covered with snow.

8. 'In two or three days the snow-like blossoms are gone, and the fruit is left. When it is ripe, men put cloths under the trees, and shake it down.'

9. 'I wish I could go and help!' said Harry. 'What comes next?'

'They pick up the berries, dry them in the sun, and get the beans out. Then they send the beans over the sea in a ship. And here they are!'