1. Dora was alone in the garden. She had played about till she was tired, when she found herself close to the bed of peas. She had seen her father sow the peas, and now there were tall plants with leaves and flowers and green tendrils.

2. Dora unrolled one or two of these tendrils, and then watched them roll up again. She thought:

'How funny it is of the plant to put these out on purpose to take hold of the sticks! And how pretty the flowers are! They look like little white butterflies. I will pull one open.'

3. She picked a flower, and sat down with it on the grass. Inside of it she found something long and green. This she opened, and saw a row of tiny green balls.

4. Not one of them was half as big as a pin's head. They were all in a row, and Dora counted seven of them.

She picked out each one and laid them on her hand to look at.

5. Then it came into her mind that these little mites of things must be baby-peas. And she felt sorry to think what she had done, for she could not put them back into their nest, and now they would never grow up to be big.

6. She told Harry about it next day, and he said, yes, it was very true. But he must pull open just one flower himself and see the peas inside; and so he did. There were six peas in his flower.

7. Every day after this, Dora and Harry came to look at the plants.

For a long time the flowers were very pretty. Then they began to wither. One by one they dropped off; but the inside part of each stayed on, looking green and shiny.

8. The children called these shiny green things bags, till they heard some one say that they were pods.

Sometimes they touched them. They soon began to feel the peas inside. The pods grew larger and fatter every day.