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 getting on in your school-time; do you like your lessons, and have you learnt a great deal?”

“Oh no!” replied Heidi, sighing, “but I knew beforehand that it was not possible to learn.”

“What is it you think impossible to learn?”

“Why, to read, it is too difficult.”

“You don’t say so! and who told you that?”

“Peter told me, and he knew all about it, for he had tried and tried and could not learn it.”

“Peter must be a very odd boy then! But listen, Heidi, we must not always go by what Peter says, we must try for ourselves. I am certain that you did not give all your attention to the tutor when he was trying to teach you your letters.”

“It’s of no use,” said Heidi in the tone of one who was ready to endure what could not be cured.

“Listen to what I have to say,” continued the grandmother. “You have not been able to learn your alphabet because you believed what Peter said; but now you must believe what I tell you—and I tell you that you can learn to read in a very little while, as many other children do, who are made like you and not like Peter. And now hear what comes after—you see that picture with the shepherd and the animals—well, as soon as you are able to read you shall have that book for your own, and then you will know all about the sheep and the goats, and what the shepherd did, and the wonderful things that happened to him, just as if some one were telling you the whole tale. You will like to hear about all that, won’t you?”

Heidi had listened with eager attention to the grandmother’s