not a head, but a helmet. I knew all the butterflies--they were mostly
small ones, but of lovely varieties. A stray dragon-fly would now and
then delight me; and there were hunting-spiders and wood-lice, and
queerer creatures of which I do not yet know the names. Then there were
grasshoppers, which for some time I took to be made of green leaves,
and I thought they grew like fruit on the trees till they were ripe,
when they jumped down, and jumped for ever after. Another child might
have caught and caged them; for me, I followed them about, and watched
their ways.

In the Winter, things had not hitherto gone quite so well with me. Then
I had been a good deal dependent upon Nannie and her stories, which
were neither very varied nor very well told. But now that I had begun
to read, things went better. To be sure, there were not in my uncle's
library many books such as children have now-a-days; but there were old
histories, and some voyages and travels, and in them I revelled. I am
perplexed sometimes when I look into one of these books--for I have
them all about me now--to find how dry they are. The shine seems to
have gone out of them. Or is it that the shine has gone out of the eyes
that used to read them? If so, it will come again some day. I do not
find that the shine has gone out of a beetle's back; and I can read
_The Pilgrim's Progress_ still.




CHAPTER VI.


I COBBLE.