1. The little mineral box was made, and Harry and Dora put in the lumps of lead, iron, copper, tin, zinc, chalk, and slate. Father wrote the names on tiny slips of paper and gummed them on.

2. Then he said that he was going to make Dora a doll's house. On hearing this, Dora first jumped about for joy, and then climbed up on her father's knees to kiss and hug him.

3. The doll's house was not made all at once. It had to be done bit by bit in the evenings after father had come home from work and had his tea.

4. Dora and Harry always helped him, or stood by and talked, played with bits of wood, and turned over the tools in the box.

5. They said that saw-dust should be called wood-dust; and they found out that wood was called tree when it was alive, and tree was called wood when it was dead. They thought this very funny.

6. They also learned that there were as many kinds of wood as there were trees.

'Some wood is hard,' said their father, 'some is half-hard, and some is soft.'

'Soft wood!' cried Dora.

7. 'Well, not soft like butter! But softer than oak, beech, birch, and elm'——

'The trunk of an oak-tree is lying where the rabbits live,' said Harry, in a great hurry. 'We often play on it. I know that it is hard. What sort of wood are you making the doll's house of?'

8. 'Soft wood. It is a bit of pine. So is the box that holds the minerals. I should find it hard work to cut oak.

'Now, there is one kind of wood so soft that you can bend it. It is called willow, and baskets are made of it.

'But oak was once used in building the great strong ships.'