7. But I have told you, that although fables are not true stories, they
are very useful to us, because they teach us a useful lesson. This
lesson that they teach is called the _moral_ of the fable; and that is
always the best fable that has the best moral to it, or, in other words,
that teaches us the best lesson.

8. The story, or the fable, that I promised to tell you, is in the next
lesson, and I wish you, when you read it, to see whether you can find
out what the lesson, or moral, is which it teaches; and whether it is at
all like the story of the father and the bundle of sticks, that I told
you in the last lesson. While you read it, be very careful that you do
not pass over any word the meaning of which you do not know.




LESSON IV.

_The Discontented Pendulum._--JANE TAYLOR.


[Illustration]

1. An old clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen,
without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's
morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped.

2. Upon this, the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable) changed
countenance with alarm; the hands made a vain effort to continue their
course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung