In after life, Willie continued to pay a good deal of attention not
merely to reading for its own sake, but to reading for the sake of other
people, that is, to reading aloud. As often as he came, in the course of
his own reading, to any verse that he liked very much, he always read
it aloud in order to teach himself how it ought to be read; doing his
best--first, to make it sound true, that is, to read it according to the
sense; next, to make it sound beautiful, that is, to read it according
to the measure of the verse and the melody of the words.

He now read a great deal to Hector. There came to be a certain time
every day at which Willie Macmichael was joyfully expected by the
shoemaker--to read to him for an hour and a half--beyond which time his
father did not wish the reading to extend.




CHAPTER VII.


SOME THINGS THAT CAME OF WILLIE'S GOING TO SCHOOL.

When his father found that he had learned to read, then he judged it
good for him to go to school. Willie was very much pleased. His mother
said she would make him a bag to carry his books in; but Willie said
there was no occasion to trouble herself; for, if she would give him the
stuff, he would make it. So she got him a nice bit of green baize, and
in the afternoon he made his bag--no gobble-stitch work, but good,
honest back-stitching, except the string-case, which was only run, that
it might draw easier and tighter. He passed the string through with a