Isn't this a pleasant house? I wish we could all live in as charming
a home, by as blue and lovely a river, and with as large and sweet
a garden, or, if we might have such a place for our school, how
delightful it would be!

Here lives Louise, my blue-eyed, sunny-haired little friend, and here
in the garden she plays with Fritz and sturdy little Gretchen. And
here, too, at evening the father and mother come to sit on the
piazza among the roses, and the children leave their games, to nestle
together on the steps while the dear brother Christian plays softly
and sweetly on his flute.

Louise is a motherly child, already eight years old, and always
willing and glad to take care of the younger ones; indeed, she calls
Gretchen _her_ baby, and the little one loves dearly her child-mamma.

They live in this great house, and they have plenty of toys and books,
and plenty of good food, and comfortable little beds to sleep in at
night, although, like Jeannette's, they are only neat little boxes
built against the side of the wall.

But near them, in the valley, live the poor people, in small, low
houses. They eat black bread, wear coarse clothes, and even the
children must work all day that they may have food for to-morrow.

The mother of Louise is a gentle, loving woman; she says to her
children: "Dear children, to-day we are rich, we can have all that
we want, but we will not forget the poor. You may some day be poor
yourselves, and, if you learn now what poverty is, you will be more
ready to meet it when it comes." So, day after day, the great stove